When I first became aware of her was 5 summers ago. Every year, thousands come to my shores to picnic on my beaches, to swim in my cool waters, to fish under my trees.  They strip off their garb and lie in their bare skin, browning under the warm summer sun. Their children splash and play where the lake water laps against the sands.  Those who have only started to transition into their adulthood sneak into my woods and imbibe in all manner of intoxication, lust, or deep and seemingly important conversations, which will fade with the frequency of their visits as they age.

She first appeared in one of these groups of teenagers. In my millennia of watching and guarding this place, there was something immediately different about her.  She was intoxicating; I could feel her aroma from across the water. It was as sweet as any herbs burned by her people.  There was a softness in the way she walked, and a music in her voice when she spoke, which brought a warmth to me like the sun shining on the mossy growth at the foot of one of my willow trees.  Every one of these past 5 summer seasons, almost daily, she had come to bathe in my cool waters, to lie bare under my warm sun, and let my coarse sands caress her.   As a guardian, I have been chosen to watch and protect that which grows upon my shores, as I watched her grow; she had become as much a part of this to me as any leaf or seedling at my shores, as any frond or fish in my waters.  Deftly and quietly moving through the forest surrounding, combing its depths for that which may destroy this sacred and ancient place is my charge. Humans have been as much my protected as my bane in this task, but not one was like her.

On this day, I could feel her entering the forest.  I could hear the gentle bare footfalls.  I could sense that aromatic and intoxicating scent as a spring blossom on the wind.  Salty, earthy, and pungent as she perspired walking through my wood. To my lake. To be under my guard, yet again.

“I can’t believe you are leaving us for America!” her young companion says. This jolts me from my entrancement, and I focus on their conversation from my vantage point in the brush.

“It’s only for a year, and I cannot wait to travel and see all of the West!” she replies with a voice like gentle chimes in the wind.  “It’s not like I won’t be back to join you guys for Uni in the South next year. It will be sad to leave Berlin.”  It feels in my soul as if a bolt of lightning has struck my heart.

“I guess so, I think I’m more jealous than anything! You might meet an American cowboy or something and stay forever!” Forever?  I cannot have this; she is mine to protect, as is this very lake, which I am bound to.

They both laugh, but I can only focus on her.  This auburn-haired beauty.  Slender and toned like a doe gently picking her way through my wood.  Long and slim bare feet softly picking their way across my warm moss and light dusty path, leaving imprints behind for what may be the last time. As they near the edge of the clearing before the waters, they unravel their towels in the sands next to others, and she begins to peel the layers of clothing away, revealing her naked, soft, warm skin. There is a light layer of dewdrop perspiration as she disrobes, from the strenuous hike to my most secluded beach on this humid day.

I watch the droplets pool, and I’m mesmerized as they roll slowly over her tanned figure.  I am almost in a trance as a droplet rolls down from her shoulder over her round bottom and disappears between her folds, only to reappear down the inside of her long and toned thigh, all the way to the pebbles of my shore. “Sacred, this place is now sacred,” I whisper in a tongue that is as ancient as the world is old, as I send a short, cool breeze to comfort her and begin to weave my enchanted web.

“That was strange…” she mumbles with a slight shiver as the fine hairs of her skin prick up. She shrugs off, but my spell is beginning.

Through the morning, she whiles away with her group, inane chatter, and passing cold-brewed bottles around, which they have plunged into my cool waters.  As the high noon sun approaches, she stands, slightly wobbly from the drink and the heat, and strolls casually to my shore.  Her firm breasts and shoulders are pink from the sun, and her cinnamon areola with nipples standing straight out distract me as she dives into my waters and begins to swim around in the shallows of the willow root pools playfully.  I deftly slide into the water, creating barely a ripple. I swim in the dark depths, carefully remaining just out of the light while I encroach as near as I dare to her, my beauty, my protected creature who has driven me into this obsessive lust.

As she swims, I speak my magic to reach out with the reeds and fronds at the bottom of the lake.  I gently brush and caress her warm skin as she swims by.  Gliding across her taught belly, skipping across her belly button like a stone thrown on the lake. Feeling her through my green avatars.  Running the length of her long and toned legs earned through her years of hiking in my wood and swimming in my waters.  I tickle at her toes with reeds as she nears the shore.  And all the while, I am resisting an impossible urge to reach out, to feel her in my own strong grip. To gently caress her with my rough hands like tree bark, and hold her tightly like a vine constricts a tree. Not letting her leave to this America in the West.

After splashing and cooling, she climbs back on my banks and rolls in the warm sands. It coats her brown skin and obscures her like a natural garment.  She pulls her long, silken hair back and ties it after shaking out sand and water.  And then gently scrubs the sands off her body.  Slowly exfoliating, almost ritualistically.  First her long legs, then her slender feet, her toned arms, her perky breasts, and her tight belly. Unbeknownst to her, she is preparing her sacred body.

As she lies back on her towel, I breathe a warm wind upon her.  She slowly falls into a drowsy, dreamlike state as the afternoon wanes. I watch her with her soft, gentle smile. I feel the moisture between her legs as she dreams, my sweet dreams, I smell her deep, earthy aroma, and taste the salty tang in the air.  Soft moans, almost imperceptible, and deep, ragged breathing.  She writhes slowly on her towel as she sleeps in the sun; it is working.

“Nice dreams?” her morning companion asks, chuckling when she awakens her slowly in the waning afternoon.

“Mmm… yes… strange… but… pleasant.” Her cheeks redden to match the sun-kissed skin of her friend.

“Come on! We’re packing up to catch the next train home, Hans is having a big party at his flat, and his parents are in Mallorca for the whole week.”

“I feel so bad I slept my last day at this beach away,” she responds with hesitation. “I think I’d like to stay and watch the sun set below the trees one last time.  You go,  I’ll catch the next train and meet you at Hans’ house later?”  I hold my breath, and my heart is beating into my ears; the weaving web is nearly completed.

“I’ll stay with you, if you like?“ her friend offers with unease.

“No, I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want you to miss an opportunity to ride the train with Hans!”  she laughs and playfully shoves her friend.  With a hint of hesitancy in her voice, “It’s just that, this is my last visit to this beautiful place as the young person I am.  I wish to take it in a little longer, I feel like I need to say goodbye properly.” She smiles; the sun itself could never light up the clearing as she does.

“Ok,  please text me when you get to the train station? So I know you are not lost to the woods forever?” her friend laughs as her body eases.

“Of course,” she hugs her friend long, in a gentle way, and releases not without hesitation. My nether regions are stirring. I soon shall embrace you, too, my perfect flower.

The long minutes of goodbyes and cleaning up as her pack gathers their refuse and belongings drag by for an eternity.  I have lived a millennium, and these moments were the most cumbersome of my existence.  My loins ache in anticipation, my breath is baited and still. I am a stone in the forest just beyond the clearing, yet every fiber of my body is tensed and ready for what is to come. Finally, she is sitting in the sand alone with her back to me, watching the sun setting across the lake through the trees. All I see is the dark outline of her perfect form.

“You can come out now.” There is a quiet as the words sink into the rocks, echo across the water, and are lost in the still leaves of the trees. “I know you have been watching me, I felt you, dreamed of you, and I know you desire me,” she speaks to me with a slight fear and a sort of brave, indignant hunger in her voice.

I rise and slowly creep to the edge of the wood. She turns at the noise and tenses as a rabbit ready to run for its very existence.  Her eyes wide and her heart pounding. Her aroma is an intoxicating mixture of fear and erotic excitement.

I part the woods as my hulking and ancient form emerges from the underbrush.  She tenses to run and opens her mouth to scream. In a panic, I low to the nearby willow, and it bends, cracking and creaking fronds slipping across her wrists, yanking her strong arms out. Its roots grasp her ankles and entwine around them, pulling her legs apart. While it deftly muffles her startled scream with more of its leafy hanging branches.  A naked damselfly caught in the web of my ancient magic, and though I am ravenous, I am no spider. She must be a willing bride.

I was born as a man, partially, or at least once upon a time.  Born into these woods a millennium ago, though long years of roaming and protecting the wood and water have changed me.  My skin is rough and bark-like where I grip the earth with my massive hands and feet, and yet smooth and hard as a river stone where the years of weathering have created a nearly impenetrable granite layer. My hair, if you may call it that, is more of a soft green moss, and my long beard almost resembles the growth of lush green over the entrance of a cave in a rocky outcropping. There are chips and black charring in places from my many times where I was forced to react in violence, protecting my lake from those who would poison my waters, fell my trees, or take more than their share of the fresh bounties within my domain.  Yet I am not entirely changed; the part of me that maintains the essence of my humanity is my eyes.  And while they have changed in shade from a clear blue into a deep emerald green to match my waters over the millennia, they are unmistakably human.

I move slowly and deliberately towards her as she struggles and is lifted from the ground by her willow snare.  As tears well in the corners of her diamond-glittering and innocent eyes, I speak with my full voice. “Be still, my treasure.” It is deep and carries the weight of ancient magic.  “You have called me forth.” She slows her breathing, and the willow erases its hold of her soft lips as she gasps.

“Who are you? What are you?” she barely gets the words out of her breast.

“I am a watcher and guardian of the lake,” I reply in a deep and calm, earthy voice.

“W-what do you want from me?”

“I want you, in fact, I need you, I need your body, I need your womb, if only you will submit yourself to the ritual.” I reply in deep and quiet reverberation, “I am fading, and the lake needs its next watcher.  A sire I need for you to provide, if you will agree to be my forest bride.”

Unsettled fear and ancient magical knowing cross her face.  As she realizes that she was both chosen, that she too has chosen this, by calling me forth. Should she agree, she will be my forest bride, and she will bear me a successor. I step close enough that she can smell my earthy musk like clay, feel the coolness radiating off of my smooth granite skin, and simultaneously the warmth of my mossy fur and deep breathing.  Even held aloft by the willow almost as high as she was tall, she was not quite at my eye level. I stoop down to look her directly in the eyes; I become lost in their brilliance.

“I have waited a millennium for you. I must complete my watch.  I must create the next Guardian.”  Her eyes widened, and her brilliant iridescent iris belied a deep understanding, and she nods affirming.  “I-I will be your bride,” she glances down at my throbbing and engorged trunk between my legs.  It was thick and almost wood-like, smooth but slightly knotted; it was firm yet giving like that of a log steeped in the river for months.  As much of this forest and lake as the rest of me.  Resembling a human member in form and function, but as large as a lower bough of a strong young tree.  My seed was held in my large testicles, which resembled abnormally large tree nuts covered in the same light, warm moss as much of the rest of me. She is wide-eyed, and I can smell her fear, but she smiles knowingly.

“My Bride,” I whisper my last incantation as I finally reach out to touch her soft belly.  She trembles and moans as her body responds to my warmth and my soft gaze. “There must be a watcher, and my time is ending.  You have called me forth.”  I speak as I continue to caress her lithe body. Her fear is subsiding, fully giving way to desire.  “I will not hold myself back, but I intend not to harm you in the ritual.”

I continue to worship her with my touch. Gently massaging her supple breasts with my rough hands, taking time to slide my fingertips across her now erect nipples.  I bring a hand slowly down her middle, across her belly, and towards her mound.  Causing a soft moan to pass her lips like a breeze in the wind.  I move to her thigh and round to her buttocks, where I grasp firmly as I press my full weight against her, letting her take in my aroma, feel my cold hardness and soft warmth simultaneously.  Breathing in her arousal, subsiding fear, and perspiration alike.  I look her again in the eyes, as she stares directly into my very soul and nods.

I slide my hand off her bottom and back around to her folds.  I find the small pearl of flesh between them and place a finger gently upon it.  Slowly increasing pressure as I wiggle back and forth like a branch in the breeze. Another gasp of pleasure escapes her lips.  I put my lips to her neck and kiss her gently.  She twists in her web again, but I know she’s no longer trying to flee.  I continue my gentle probing of her and begin to slide my fingers across her opening slowly at first, and quickening as she responds with her precious moisture and deep guttural moans.  I take a breast fully into my mouth and suck greedily like a newborn fawn. Rolling her nipples gently between my stone teeth. She grips the branches on her wrists tightly. Writhing in her ecstasy, breathing heavily, and making the sweet noises of a broken woman nearing climax.  I move, slide my trunk between her thighs,  and the willow lowers her so that she’s resting upon it, as I tower over her, it’s almost like a child straddling a lower bough of a strong tree.  I move my hips in and out slowly, gently allowing every bump and knot of my wood to feel her soft, petal-like lips.

“Oh, oh, oooooooh God, take me!” she exclaims as she grinds herself into my trunk, and her honey juices soak my whole member.

I bend my trunk upwards,  its large mushrooming head resting at her warm, wet cave. I begin to push slowly into her.  She bites her lower lip hard and tenses every muscle fiber as she takes the impossible girth.  I continue my upward pressure until, with a small pop, I push past her maidenhead and into her inviting warmth.  It grips me like soft soil after a hard rain.  She cries out briefly in pain as I deflower her.  But quickly turns back into cries of absolutely primal delight as I reach the end of her depths.  I can feel every inch of her moist insides gripping every knot and burr of my trunk as I slowly pull back out of her, nearly to the top again and again and again, while the sun slowly descends.  I have waited a millennium for her, and could I savor her for another millennium, I would.  She bucks and wiggles as she comes a second time, tightening around me like a constrictor does its prey.  I thrust more rapidly.

“More, oh God, more! Give me more! I need all of you.”   She is nearly pulling herself free in her thrashing.  I continue to thrust into her, holding her close to me.  The willow gently lowers her to the ground while I continue to claim my bride. She has been gently rested on a warm, mossy ground under the willow.  From atop of her, I see her splayed out in all of her radiance, her skin is glistening in the last light of day.  She is unconsciously fighting her bindings as I continue claiming of her sweet body. The vines grow tighter on her arms and the roots on her legs to minimize her elated thrashing beneath me.

“Uuuuungh, uuuungh, unnnngh, mmmm, uuuuugh, mmmm, mmmm, mmm, uuuugh.”  Her words devolve into only the sounds of delirious pleasure. She erupts again, her clear and pungent juices soaking our thighs.  I slide my knotted wood in and out at a frenzied pace, nearing my own climax.  Every knot and barb of my trunk is aflame as her tight body closes around me yet again.

“Oooohhhh myyyy it’s Gooooddddd!” she cries out as she comes, and I release a deep and ancient howl that stops the last of the birds chirping, insects buzzing, leaves rustling, and even the stillness of the lake water itself.   Warm jet after warm jet of my seeded sap pours into her womb. Coating her walls and filling her to the point where it is leaking out around my slowly shrinking trunk and spilling onto the ground around us.

She collapses into a deep and exhausted sleep as the roots and vines release her.  I wash her gently with warm water and soft moss.  Before I gently bear her and her belongings deep into the forest and lay her gently in a soft, mossy bed.  I pour out a dour of cool, clear mineral water, and spread honey, sweet herbs, fruits, and nuts from my forest for her.  She stirs as I sit down beside her.

“And what happens now?” she whispers through sleepy eyes.

“I will protect you until you are ready to go back to your kind. If you are with seed, then I will watch his emergence. I may end my watch and slowly return to the earth as I teach him the ways of the Guardian of the Lake.”

“And if I’m not with your seed?” she asks with a look of genuine concern on her face.

“Then we must perform the ritual again,” I reply.

“Then I hope it takes another millennium to get it right.” She smiles and exhales softly as she drifts back to sleep.