Mulberry trees (Morus spp.) are a species that are gender fluid—they may first be male, then female, then change back again. You can find individual mulberry trees that are dioecious—with only male flowers or only female flowers. But right next to such a tree might be a monoecious specimen, bearing both male or female flowers. And to add another veil of intrigue, sometimes mulberry flowers start out as one sex and transform halfway through the season.

*****

Renata trips over something. She hasn't been looking down, but up into the treetops, listening to what sounded like an entreaty from an intrusive bird. Now she is on the ground with a twisted ankle.

It's a mulberry tree, Renata knows that. It's filled with purple and red fruits, some covering the ground. The palms of her hands are dyed with the stain of the berries, almost the color of blood. So is her linen dress with the half sleeves and the calf length skirt. She winces slightly as she moves her leg. It feels like the pain is not as bad as she had expected when she fell.

She sticks her hands into the clean dirt around the base of the tree, getting the soil on her palms, and then rubs them together vigorously, trying to get some of the berry juice off before it sets and leaves her hands purple. Oh, well. Not clean, perhaps, but no matter. She looks around into the robust limbs above her to find the bird that was crying out and demanding her attention.

At last she notices that what she tripped on is what appears to be pieces of bone. They are large and small, white or yellowed, and rather aged looking, with bits missing that small creatures may have gnawed away. But they truly are dried up bones. The bony matter is strewn about under the creaking bows above. It is hidden to a great degree by the forbs and grasses flourishing beneath the tree. 

She thinks she recognizes the bird that called out, but then not really. The call seems familiar but what it is she is unsure. Many birds sound the same to her. She has been so lost in reverie that most bird calls would impinge only slightly on her mind. This one has seemed more urgent as it brings her out of herself.

Out of her sorrow.

Yesterday the final blow had descended, the last thing Renata could bear. She takes a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabs at her tears. She may easily ignore the sprained ankle as she considers her losses.

One more time she has lost the potential of a child. One more time. They have been trying for so many years. During Arthur's deployment the first time, then while he was at home between tours, then this last time while he was still away across the seas. She had wept as she considered how she could tell him this news one more time. She had been taking such good care of herself. So careful.

It's the worst thing to ever happen to anyone she had thought when she was home from the hospital rocking herself into a stupor of pity. Then the doorbell rang. No, she thought, peeking out around the curtain on the door. No. Not this. Not now.

She had opened the door shivering, her elegant arms encircling her bountiful bosom and holding her head up trying not to collapse as she faced the two men in uniform.

She doesn't remember a lot after that. She awoke this morning in her own bed and is now in the forest that stretches out to the horizon behind their apartment building on the outskirts of the base where they are stationed. She had dressed, waved off the attention of her next-door neighbor, and wandered down across a meadow and into the crunchy, restless autumnal woodlands.

She had not been feeling much of anything until the bird had cried out and interrupted her raging, raving thoughts.

She adjusts herself on the turf under the massive arbor and leans back against the huge trunk of the mulberry tree. She is so very tired. So tired. As her mind falls into a restless, relentless dream, she remembers. Magpie. It was a magpie calling down to her earlier. As if entreating or warning. And she now is out of this world drifting away in her dreamland, her fantasy land, where her visions of joy and hope still live.

Soft and tender is the sense of being caressed, gently and delicately touched, almost tickled. Her seemingly becharmed delusions entwine in her thinking and rueful contemplations. 

Something is clinging to her as she slowly awakens. The magpie is perched upon her shoulder and is raptly gazing into her eyes, tilting its head back and forth, and finally it opens its beak and cries out in one of the many voices it has. An admonition, or is it simply a welcome? She can't tell but she knows she isn't afraid even when she sees the woody rootlets laid upon her ankle and somehow warming and soothing the pain. This is odd. Perhaps the oddest of all is that she doesn't really think it strange in the least. It seems normal. She's both worn down and borne up. She accepts the healing and soothing.

The pain is being tempered in the twisted joint but not in her wrenched and wretched heart. 

The magpie hops down onto the sod and flicks its long tail feathers in a motion that seems to be gesturing to Renata to follow it. Looking back and then striding with its short legs up and over the large twisty roots and around the trunk, flicking a wingtip out and around, circling the tree so that she will follow.

She rises and passes around the broad girth of the trunk as it seems to spread apart. As she moves the heavy textured bark is drawn away from the living wood and its inner wood shrinks back and more inward, forming a chamber of sorts, open and airy enough to accept her into it and that is the first thing she tries. She sits upon a natural seat, worn and shiny, having apparently been well used in the past. Mosses and ferns surround her.

About this living entrance there are threadlike twigs flittering and fluttering in expectation. Renata is nothing if not confused but her curiosity makes her relax. The fluttering dies down as some tentacular filaments and vines quickly and with trepidatious need touch the pinkness of her cheeks and the curls of her jet black tresses. They retreat up to the lofty heights of the massive tree's limbs and branches.

A geographer's wish to write about the sense of place she feels might vie with similar feelings from an artist about to paint the ambiance and emotions of a place not often found and seldom duplicated and displayed. Both temperaments may be vital to a true understanding. At this moment Renata is neither a geographer nor an artist, although she has been both in the past. She is simply once again relishing a dream that she is floating into. One that is taking her away from her world of ugliness and deeply internalized shame. 

Into a world of potential understanding. Perhaps even complete fulfillment.

The magpie skips away, gaining loft, and rises onto a lower branch to be nearby. It watches and waits, letting out a cry or two when it seems necessary.

And the Morus, in the family of Moraceae, awakens completely. And it questions. Has someone returned. Shall I tender hope and renewal to one who needs. Must I accept her as she is, or change her, this one who calls herself Renata. Perhaps restore her. So many decisions.

The mulberry wonders and envelopes this new one in its appendages. Twigs, rootlets, vines, tentacles, and flowing filaments all conspire and move to touch and, perhaps, transform this new one who bears an intense pain that needs soothing more, much more than the ache of a twisted ankle. Her twisted, broken heart may need healing within the tree's stalwart heart.

The mulberry tree is gender fluid. This is its choice as a species and as a figure of myth and monstrosity. It may be a monster if necessary to its own story. Whether a good monster or a bad monster is its choice. Its sentience was somehow its choosing in antiquity. So long ago that it does not remember its own beginning. It only knows that it thinks and it makes decisions.

Now it must decide what this little one needs. If it is to attempt the healing or not. And how it must be done. The judgment must be made if the one without hope is to now regain peace at least once more and become what she might be. 

Morus must determine what is best for itself. For its own narrative and history. The magpie cries out in its branches. Giving out raucous and adoring advice. And Renata sleeps once again.

The magpie flaps its wings and takes flight, soaring over the forest, looking intently down into the woodlands and the meadows. And as it flies its visions are sent back to the mulberry. The tree sees what the bird sees. What this bird and many others see that have been welcomed into its swaying branches. It knows what is happening around it and is satisfied that nothing untoward is occurring in its land, this geographic setting that it rules with it own set of rules. 

A crow is sitting in a lower branch of the tree. It crooks its head back and forth, gazing intently at the girl lolling below. As it watches closely the mulberry sends out tendrils and vines from its branches to touch Renata as she rests against the massive trunk above the greensward.

Tufts of soft plants caress her legs as she sleeps and the moving elements of the tree begin removing her clothing until her creamy flesh is free of the linen dress. Each under garment slides away as sharply tipped tentacles cut the satin material. She has no need of the bra and panties that have been confining her soft skin and firm body. Her shape emerges with its bounteous breasts and fecund femininity. Her vibrancy fills the tree with what it has learned to know as a deep and abiding pleasure. No other idea will suffice for it to understand fully.

Her raven tresses fall about her gently tossing head and her lips lift into a smile. Her tongue tip licks her scarlet lips. Tendrils have entered her silky hair, touching with confidence her scalp as others spread over her body. Her legs are extending outward with the knees slightly bent and falling apart. The cushiony velvet skin of her thighs quivers slightly. Her trembling toes extend and retract as if she is being tickled and she is placing each soft, delicate foot upon a cushioned pathway to paradise. 

Every inch of her is examined and learned. Morus knows her intimately as the smaller filaments and larger tentacles writhe across and into each opening of any kind. Pricks are made with sharp, probing thorns that allow droplets of blood to ooze out and be licked up by mouth-like organs on the edges of vines that suck it into the tree's own vascular system of sap and plant fluids. Her body is known as others have been thoroughly comprehended over the ages of humanity.

And her mind is becoming recognized and celebrated in the heart of the arbor. With its thoughts it is searching and finding the places in the brain that need to be nourished and fed to become the person the tree needs. The areas of the mind that may be changed, or not, depending upon its monstrous motivations and requirements. 

It has found the special places it knows well. The areas of pleasure--and of pain. As its ancient mind touches one spot Renata writhes in agony, but only for a moment. Yes, Morus knows that spot well. Many a time in the past has it used that knowledge to punish when it felt it necessary. Numbers of living creatures, human or not, have been condemned and crushed. Now, ever so gently, its thoughts caress places very near the pain centers but which will complete the cycle. And Renata's body twitches and moves spasmodically as the juices begin to slowly leak from her orifices.

The sexual fluids start to drip from her vagina, flowing salaciously past her vulva and dropping down to the grasses and soil beneath her, feeding the age-old plant with her feminine moisture. Her mouth drools with the unrecognized pleasure and her eyelids flutter as tears of final remembrance pass before her inner eye.

Morus understands her now, just as it has experienced so many others before her. Men and women. Young and old. Cruel and kind. It knows them well. And it uses them as it will.

With the knowledge it has of this little human one the tree is ready to decide its future. And Renata sleeps, long and deeply, safe within the chamber the tree has created for this purpose. She slumbers and rests and receives sustenance as Morus changes into what it wishes to be. After hours and days it is done.

{Now it is the reader's choice. There are two endings. Click on one or the other. Perhaps both. It is your choice.}

The Primeval Masculine entity emerges.

The change into the Masculine entity is complete. One of His small blackbird vassals is summoned and it crows beside her slumbering face, summoning her back from her restive slumbers. His completion opens with a final burst of salacious inquiry. He presses one of His cylindrical and flesh-like tentacles slowly between Renata's labia of ecstasy that unfold to His urgings.

He begins to push ever deeper and begins a throbbing intensity that is reflected on her now euphoric and enraptured face. Her features are displaying a beatific rictus of joy. And the bulbous member moves in and out with the rhythm of the breeze now flowing through the tree's sparse leaves and rigid limbs.

Tentative but seeking tendrils softly stroke her delicate nipples, making them protrude into the chilly air of late autumn. The very ends of special suction tentacles surround each breast and pulsate with an almost mammalian need, urging her to feel that which she had thought lost to her. Her mind is on a tour of what if and what might have been, exploring new vistas as she shares the cerebration and desires of this monstrous yet soothing mind.

Not only does she feel the physical ministrations and exploration of the herbaceous beast but the mentation of the primeval vegetable strokes each spot in her mind that feeds her lust and concupiscence. And He watches all through the eyes of birds sitting above the hollow in the tree. On each limb and branch there are now wild fowl of all types and kinds, taking in what is transpiring, Morus sees and hears what they observe while His own appendages touch, smell, and taste what is left to be felt.   

Renata feels bliss. Total and supremely sublime bliss. Her orgasmic seizures continue even as she awakens fully and screams out with utter happiness. Her cries echo over the woodlands as the birds sing out in warbles, trills, and squawks. She knows the divine exhilaration and splendor she thought was gone forever. And her body keeps climaxing as Morus fondles and pets her body, seeking to be one with her in the only way He understands. This is what He has ascertained in His encounters with so many other humans and what it makes use of for His own gratification. He knows pleasure in His own grotesque version of hedonism.

Her rapturous delight spirals throughout her body, filling her mind with passionate acceptance. She feels the lubricious fluids leak from her fluttering nether lips. Morus gradually and incrementally pulls His pulsating member out making her experience smaller orgasms with each memorable moment. Her body humps into the hardness, her fingernails digging into the gritty bark of the tree, wanting it to never end. She collapses with an enthralled sigh of acceptance. 

The Masculine tree caresses her with His most soft and gentle vines and tentacles created just for this purpose. He soothes her as she trembles with remembrance of the pleasure her new protector has just given to her. His little one is His to use as He wishes. From centuries in the past to very recently He has saved the bits He took from the men that passed His way. The unfortunate ones that stumbled upon this territory of the mulberry arbor and were taken, examined, and discarded. But only after the parts the tree wanted were taken. The human pieces and fluids He saved for His needs. 

Once more He strokes Renata's brow and cheek, letting her know she is cherished in His botanical heart. New ecstasy is hers to feel as He prepares her for what is to come. Each of her orifices is tickled and aroused in the way He has learned will give Him the response He wants. All of her naked flesh is fondled, cuddled, and enfolded.

First His filaments weave a message of need in the air and then descend to languidly and delicately writhe across her dimpled, responsive epidermis. She moans in anticipation of new joy to come. Renata thrusts her fingers into her tresses, tossing them about with abandon, and then squeezes and embraces her own body.

Morusis entirely aware of her physical pleasure centers, both internally and on the surface. And in her brain and mind. He has established how to give her complete gratification. He does it. Each breast is encircled with tentacles that press and pull. That pinch and suck. They tremble with satisfaction while her nipples expand to accept His touch.

Botanical saps leak from the ends of the tentacles that enter her two nether openings. Each one is used the way He has learned will be received with relish and enthusiasm. They thrust and expand, filling her and thrilling her. They are used in the manner He had become aware of in His examinations of the men and women unlucky enough to pass His way and be found necessary to Him in some way. He does what the minds of humans have taught Him to do with a woman such as this. 

She quickly and readily begins having the orgasms that He wanted to see and feel her appreciate in preparation for what is to come. She cries out with sensual satisfaction, grasping the members He is using, attempting to force them more deeply and swiftly into her body. Her voice trills loudly and gladly, feeling the sexual completion. 

Now from deep inside the huge grotesque monstrosity of a tree comes the sperm Morus has saved within the impermeable woody chambers, surrounded by the ice His avian minions has carried to Him during the frigid winters that passed over this landscape of horror. The still viable human semen slowly moves through the special vascular system He has grown for just this purpose. And, finally, it pumps out of the tentacle encompassed by her vaginal walls, ejaculating into her womb.

Now He will feed her and hold her and minister to her needs. And He will observe what comes of His abhorrent, abominable, dreadful machinations as He completes the overriding urge He learned from so many men over the epochs of His life.The fundamental and overwhelming need to breed.

The Primordial Feminine factor emerges.

Renata is allowed to sleep as long as necessary for her own well-being. Birds awaken her when she needs to eat the foods they bring her. Fruits and nuts and vegetables brought from fields surrounding the forest. Many have been preserved within the tree. This the tree learned to do many human lifetimes ago after many failures. The leaves fall out of the tree's sheltering limbs scattering across the landscape. Winter snows drift fitfully then gently around the tree. As Renata sleeps Morus becomes Herself one more time.

When spring begins filling the air with annual natural renewal it is time for Renata to join the Sisterhood. It is now her fate to become the one renewed. And She, the Great Mulberry tree of mythology, begins to mold Her new intimate servant into what She needs. To make her into a dryad of the forest. 

Each day Renata receives her training. It is now her function to care for Her children and followers. The many seedlings that are growing fruitfully around the woodlands and those creatures that seek aid and comfort from the Guardian tree. They now get that from the loving hands of Renata. Her reward is the friendship of nature that surrounds her. And the nightly consolation and serenity she receives from Her.

At first there is the passion that fills her body when the tree touches her both physically and mentally. Not a night passes without exquisite lust encompassing her trembling, enthralled flesh and mind. Feminine fluids flow and replenish necessary nutrients of craving that Morus knows and has learned to yearn for. As Renata feels the joy passing over her the trust and lust she receives from Her is sought and expected more and more often.

Renata is a creature of the woodlands, tripping happily through wildflowers in the meadows and splashing gaily in the pure waters of the laughing streams, loving what the Goddess has given so freely to the children of Gaia. She lives with utter abandonment to the joy she finds in this world she now sees completely and truly, wearing only the simple coverings needed to protect her from the restless and changeable weather the earth presents. 

The young girl is now a huntress, destroying those animals or human brutes that harm or threaten any of those under the protection of Morus. Any bodies left are given as tribute to the tree for its uses. The special bird companions may peck away as they will. Soon the bones are scattered once more as impermanent flesh melts away with the passing of time.

The woman practices her techniques with the weapons that have been scattered across the floor of the forest or gathered into the chambers within the body of the Guardian. She becomes proficient and deadly. She loses most of the melancholia in her heart.

Renata is visited often by members of the Sisterhood of Dryads.They come singly as a rule. The female children of Gaia join together in the living chamber that the Guardian provides for them or simply and openly under the stars. Small woodland creatures watch so that Morus may also watch as they lie with each other, naked and liberated. Two women loving each other any manner they choose.

The females, young like Renata, or older, wiser women, express the passions of the flesh with each other. Their unrestricted, nude bodies press against each other. Their unshaven genitalia rub together. They moan with the uninhibited lust of free sensuousness that brings orgasms of joy to both of them. Wet and juicy, their labia kiss and bring forth the happiness only two women can ever know. And She sees and knows.

Morus becomes a part of the orgiastic events, extending Her vines and filaments to touch and caress. Even pressing Her bulbous tentacles into the receptacles of craving and lechery that Renata and her companion both have. They may be used until their thirst and exhilaration are fulfilled once again by the loving Tree of Life. 

Lying side by side they can feel the lustful cylinders of yearning filling them and throbbing in and out. On occasion receiving this service while upon their hands and knees from behind. Whichever way their minds speak to Morus of the needs they have this time. 

The special suckers on Her tentacles draw in nipples as they wrap each girl's breast with threads and strands of botanical lechery. The women express their completion with cries that ring out over the woodlands and the avian witnesses sing along. Renata and her sororal companion kiss each other in loving trust and sensual fruition. 

Each night while Renata sleeps within the heart of the tree's woody body her mind is touched and soothed. Her dreams are influenced and shared with her Guardian. And in her slumbers her heart is fulfilled. She is given the gift of knowing that she is the new protector and caretaker of the Guardian Herself. This is her new tomorrow. This is the future defined by Morus.

Her children are the creatures of the forest. Her life is that of a dryad of myth. One who lives for and with the sacred mulberry tree. Truly, she is Renata Morea. Morea Reborn.