Wiggle

Wiggle

by Ranger

	Since we’ve been working on the garden since we first moved in – and it was a well established garden anyway, since it’s been being gardened since the mid 19th Century - it looks pretty good. If you’re firm with it; which is a general area of life that Damien is pretty good at.

We used to spend Saturdays on housework, or rather Damien did while dragging me in his wake, but since the Thou Shalt Work Only Three Days Or Else decree, I’ve got into the habit of doing the house myself on Fridays when I’m home all day. Damien didn’t like that at first, and kept arguing that it was not about me doing the house based work or that I needed to feel guilty about not working full time when my body felt three was my maximum limit. And while there was an element of that there at first, and I did need him to chase me out to read, or draw or do things on those days that purely were for me or because I liked doing them – the perspective changed over time. Now I do the house on Fridays partly because I like having the time to do it at my own pace, and mostly because it means that we get so much more of the weekends to ourselves.

So here we were. Saturday morning with time for gardening. The windows were thrown wide all over the house to let in what was actually a very nice early summer morning, all the housework was done, and so I was kneeling in a flower bed, planting petunias while Damien heaved bags of compost through to the garden from the car.

And I was rather enjoying the view. He does, when he’s out of his working week suits and in a t shirt and jeans, have muscles which I could vulgarly say are like a coal miner’s, and he was swinging those bags with just enough effort, balancing them one at a time on his shoulder and carrying them across the lawn to stack them by the flowerbeds, each one sliding from his shoulder with a thud and a grunt of effort from him. It was undoubtedly making him flex in all the right places. He was also getting warm under the sun, his hair was tousled as it only ever gets on weekends and holidays when he’s alone with me and doesn’t care how he looks, and he had that absorbed Mitchell on a Mission look. And unlike me, who likes t shirts baggy and hanging down over my hips, he was properly brought up to tuck his shirt in. Which means it was tight in all the right places and currently gleaming white, although the way he was going it wouldn’t stay like that for long.

“It’s no good you looking at me like that.” He informed me, dropping the fourth bag of compost. “Start that and we’ll get nothing done at all.”

”Looking at you how?” I demanded innocently. Damien snorted at me and went for the next bag. Which was fine until half way across the garden he caught my eye and laughed.

“Nicholas stop it!”

“Stop what?”

He threw the bag down and came over, closing both hands gently around my neck from behind which tickles my collarbones like hell and always makes me crunch helplessly. Kneeling in a flower bed during a wrestling match is a severe disadvantage anyway. He won hands down, dropped a rough kiss on the top of my head and jogged back for the next bag of compost. Man with a one track mind. Unfortunately currently fixed on gardening. Well I could fix that.

I put in the last petunia, brushed off my hands and got up.

I was struggling with the top bag of compost when he brought the last one over, and being Damien, pulled a penknife out of his pocket, opened a blade and produced a neat cut in the bag that was far more effective than my fingernail gouges.

“Where do we want these?”

I picked up a handful of the compost, crumbling it from one impacted chunk and letting it trickle gently down through my fingers. Dark and heavily peat scented.

“I don’t remember exactly – we had the new roses to bed in and those containers – and enough to mulch the beds at the back-“

I trickled another lot through my fingers, which I saw had caught his eye.

”Suppose you mulch and I’ll put those roses in?”

I can’t shift those bags alone anyway. He cut, opened and poured several of the bags, took a fork and began digging it into the more shaded beds, which also worked the t shirt quite nicely and made his hair fall still further into his eyes.

Well two can play at that game.

  

I kept my back to him while I dug out the holes for the roses and stretched rather than crouched, bending forward to face the rose and shake out its roots as I placed it. By the time I put the third one in, I could see he was watching me and beginning to look distinctly thoughtful, in the same way he looks at cricket when he’s next in to bat and is plotting what he’s going to do with the bowler.

“Do we want this one climbing here?” I called to him, shifting the pot so he could see and keeping my back to him as I stooped, “Or do you think it would look better going up between the Acers here?”

He dug the fork in and came over, and I moved to let him look, sliding a hand casually into his back pocket as we stood side by side.

“Between the Acers.” He said at last and his arm rested around my hips. “Then it’s got a clear climb up the fence.”

”I’ll tie it of course.” I let my fingers drum nonchalantly where they rested. Then slipped away. “I saw the wire in the shed.”

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away.

Ok, I spent the next half being a complete – er – well. You get the idea.

I kept my eyes off him, my back to him, and thoroughly enjoyed myself planting those roses with all the bending and stretching I could fit into it. It was when I started pouring peat into the containers that I knew I was starting to get to him: I leaned past him for an empty planter, resting a hand on his knee for balance, and that was it. He made a grab and I ducked it as if I hadn’t seen, tugging my jeans straight and just a little bit tighter, and heading to collect the next container.

“Do you want the marigolds in the round tub or the long one?”

“Damn the marigolds.” Damien said digging the fork into the ground and leaving it there. “Nicholas- “

”We have to get on with the gardening.” I reminded him. “Hurry hurry. The weather doesn’t last. We’ve got all evening to mess around in-“

I yelped as he grabbed me and did something that would have got him arrested if he tried it on the open street. And squirmed, wrestling his hands off.

“Now stop it. Think of the marigolds. They can’t be left half planted, and you’re mulching.” I stopped for a moment and kissed him firmly. “Go and mulch.”

I heard him growl behind me as I walked away.

  

He mulched. I planted marigolds. He’d pulled his t shirt off now, and I sat cross legged on the patio, did the same and heeled off trainers and socks to sit bare foot where I could feel the warmth of the stone. I did nothing at all. Just inoffensively planted marigolds. Which involved gently hollowing out soft compost, gently placing the plant in, stretching over the container to seat it just right- I could see why everyone loved Alan Titchmarsh.

Damien was mulching grimly with his eyes still on me in a way that made me feel as though the jeans really weren’t very much protection. His head sits just a little further forward when he starts getting wound up; his movements slow down fractionally and become just a little more deliberate; I get that little bit more aware that he’s actually a fair bit bigger than I am in breadth as well as height, and it makes him look predatory. I’ve seen him in the mornings, still dozing, draped over a pillow like a jaguar over a branch- if the man was an animal he would most definitely be some species of big cat. And not the cuddly kind either.

I crossed my ankles and stood up without using my hands; a somewhat childish trick but something I do to prove I still can. And walked past him to get the hose, hearing another snort from behind me.

“Nicholas, wiggle that once more and you’ll get it-“

Yes darling?

I gave him a blameless look and wrestled with the tap. Which I can’t help is only a foot or so above ground level and involves reaching down. I heard the shove of the fork go into the earth and the thud of him stepping down onto the grass, and turned the hose on fast, turning to face him with it on spray and currently aimed at the grass. He looked at me, I looked at him. He was half way across to me, his hands earthed and held out from his sides, looking hot, bothered and distinctly –

  

Hmm.

“You dare.” He told me. And took another step.

He got the full fire of the hose in the chest, which produced a yelp and a duck back with his arm shielding his face, but only for a second. This is Damien. He dropped his hands and simply charged me irrespective of the hose, got it in one hand and me in the other and hauled me off the ground so that he had me under one arm, hanging and pretty much helpless.

“What were we watering?” he inquired. I squirmed, not able to move an inch or get a purchase, and I was hanging onto the arm around me mostly since I didn’t feel particularly stable.

“You?”

He splashed the hose in my direction, dropped it and carried me still under one arm across to turn the tap off. I struggled, losing the battle with laughter as he carried me across to the garden bench and took a seat. He had the advantage to start with and in a tussle of flat out strength there isn’t much I can do. He slung me face down over his knees and wrapped an arm around my hips to pin me there, patting the seat of my jeans gently.

“You’ve been asking for this all morning my boy.”

“You know you really ought to re-read the manual.” I told him, squirming for a purchase on his knee to lever up.

“Since when did you come with instructions?” Damien demanded, pinning me where I was with irritating lack of effort and shifting so that one elbow was planted firmly in the middle of my back. “I know the instructions my lad, I wrote them. One; never take your eyes away for a minute. Two; turn over your lap at regular intervals-“

He swatted, smartly but not enough to sting. I yelped and he rubbed the place, at least relatively soothingly.

“Three, keep firmly under control at all times –“

”I’ll make you lunch if you let me up.” I coaxed, trying to stop laughing. He hadn’t yet cracked, although I could hear it in his voice.

“Nope. That doesn’t work for another two hours at least; it’s just past ten now.”

”Mid morning coffee then?”

“Face it,” He told me, still stroking my rump through my jeans, “You’ve had your chips.”

And he did spank me then, although not hard enough to penetrate the denim, but with total disregard for what our neighbours might see or hear. Although frankly if they saw him spank like this and me giggling while he did it, they were going to get the wrong idea anyway. He wasn’t trying particularly hard, and when I did succeed in squirming around and sitting up, we were both out of breath, both damp from the hose and neither of us cared about the marigolds. I knelt astride his lap to reach his mouth and his hands ran down my back to my hips, pulling me closer. It was a minute or two before he moved and lifted me to my feet so he could stand up.

  

“I think we’d better take this inside before the neighbours get the binoculars out.”

I led the way indoors, slipped his hand in the hallway and heard him lunge behind me which made me yelp and run for the stairs. He can cover them far faster than I can, since he can run up several steps at a time. He caught me half way up, and it took some time to make it the rest of the way to the top.

“You know this isn’t getting the gardening done?” he pointed out to me some time later. Since I was sprawled on his chest and he was under the duvet, lazily stroking my back and making it clear that was all he currently had the energy left for, it wasn’t too convincing.

  

“Better get back to it then.” I told him, starting to get up, and yelped as he grabbed me and pulled me back down, swatting with way too much accuracy considering he hadn’t even opened his eyes.

“Brat.”

I settled back down, quite happy to let the garden do its own thing for as long as it wanted.

  

“I don’t think so.” I told him firmly. “I’m not the one who can’t keep his mind on the job.”

“Can’t keep his-“ Damien opened one eye and looked at me. Then grabbed and rolled over, pinning me underneath him.

“Right. You asked for this. The full length demonstration and you’d better be taking notes my lad, there will be a quiz at the end.”

The End

Copyright Ranger 2016