Still panting with their exertions, each wrapped in an army blanket, but the front of the body open to the fire, they sat on a log side by side before the blaze, to get quiet. Connie hated the feel of the blanket against her skin. But now the sheet was all wet.
She dropped her blanket and kneeled on the clay hearth, holding her head to the fire, and shaking her hair to dry it. He watched the beautiful curving drop of her haunches. That fascinated him today. How it sloped with a rich downslope to the heavy roundness of her buttocks! And in between, folded in the secret warmth, the secret entrances!
He stroked her tail with his hand, long and subtly taking in the curves and the globe-fulness.
"Tha's got such a nice tail on thee," he said, in the throaty caressive dialect. "That's got the nicest arse of anybody. It's the nicest, nicest woman's arse as is! An' ivry bit of it is woman, woman sure as nuts. Tha'rt not one o' them button-arsed lasses as should be lads, are ter! Tha's got a real soft sloping bottom on thee, as a man loves in 'is guts. It's a bottom as could hold the world up, it is."
All the while he spoke he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hands. And his fingertips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.
"Av if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman as couldna shit nor piss."
Connie could not help a sudden snort of astonished laughter, but he went on unmoved.
"Tha'rt real, tha art! Tha'rt real, even a bit of a bitch. Here tha shits an' here tha pisses: an' I lay my hand on 'em both an' like thee for it. I like thee for it. Tha's got a proper, woman's arse, proud of itself. It's none ashamed of itself, this isna."
He laid his hand close and firm over her secret places, in a kind of close greeting.
"I like it," he said. "I like it! An' if I only lived ten minutes, an' stroked thy arse an' got to know it, I should reckon I'd lived one life, sees ter! Industrial system or not! Here's one o' my lifetimes."
She turned round and climbed into his lap, clinging to him. "Kiss me!" she whispered.
