Happy Valentine’s Day (or La Saint Valentin for the French speakers amongst us). Here’s a sweet little story for you to read with your morning pancakes. (This is sex, y’all. Just sex.)

It was mid-February–almost La Saint Valentin–which meant it was time to tap the maple trees. Albert’s favorite time of the year since he was young, when he used to tap the trees with his father and his Uncle Jacques. But Jacques retired to Montreal years ago, and Albert’s father won’t be up and about for a few hours. Albert doesn’t have any children of his own, so now, for a while at least, it’s just him and the maple trees.

The slant of the dawn’s light broke through the mist. The frost glittered, but the moment the sun peeked over the horizon the air began to warm. Albert breathed deeply as he stomped through the rotten leaves—no longer crunching after being under the snow for months—and he savored the scent of the earth and the shift of the wood as it woke up around him. The birds were sleeping late, so the forest was silent aside from the shuffle of Albert’s feet and the clatter of the bag at his side.

The bag contained his drill, hammer, spiles, and extra tubing—just in case. One of the changes that Albert had made when he took over the farm was changing from old-fashioned buckets to a centralized reservoir. It saved effort at the end, but it necessitated installing a system of tubing running all over the farm, and a vacuum in the sugar house to keep it moving smoothly. It was probably just as much work as the old system, but at least it didn’t require Albert to lug heavy buckets around for weeks on end.

Albert found the last tree he’d tapped the day before, and moved on to the next. He’d been doing this work for so long it was second nature—find the old tapping hole, drill the new one—Not too close! He could still hear his father’s warning voice in his head—hammer in the spile, hook it up to the closest tube, double-check the connection, then move on to the next tree. He hummed as he worked, tree after tree, until he ran out spiles and his wrists ached. There was a section of tubing closer to the sugar house that needed replacing, so he took some time fixing that, too.

By the time he was finished the birds were chirping and he was hungry. The collar of his jacket was touched with sweat; although it was still technically winter, spring was preparing to show herself, and it was quite warm. He’d be seeing crocuses and daffodils curling up from under the winter’s leftovers within the next week, he was certain. But instead of heading back to his cottage, he turned around and made his way deeper into the forest, as he had every day since he’d started tapping the trees this year.

He walked slowly, stepped gently, through the trees that grew closer together, the shadows deep. After several minutes he reached a thicket, which he shouldered through to emerge into a clearing.

In the center of the clearing was a tree.

It was a sugar maple. Most of the other trees in Albert’s family’s forest were sugar maples. But its type was where its similarities with the other trees ended. It was older, for one thing. Albert had no idea how old, exactly, but it had been in this clearing when he was a child, and he knew that it had been there too when his mother was a child, and when his mother’s mother was a child, and probably for generations before. It had probably been there before the first of his family had stepped off the first ship. It was bigger, too, the largest tree for miles around; its branches embraced the sky, forming a roof over the clearing so thick the sunlight could barely shine through. It had its own space, here in the clearing, and yet its influence touched every other tree in this forest, and in forests beyond.

Albert stepped into the clearing with reverence and began to slowly circle the tree. He wasn’t sure what to expect; yesterday when he’d made this trip nothing had been there to greet him except for the family of chickadees nesting in the highest branches, and they’d been distinctly unimpressed with him. 

It was still early in the season, he reminded himself. A few years before, he hadn’t seen her until the second week of March.

Albert stepped around to the front of the tree, where the sun shined down most vibrantly, and a sudden soft trembling of branches paused him mid-step. His heart leaped in his chest, and he slowly turned around to face the massive trunk.

Where yesterday had been a solid tree there was now a gap, a narrow opening in the bark that began at the root and widened as it rose, uncovering more and more of the smooth wood beneath. It opened up completely where the branches began to divide at the top of the trunk. Out of that smoothness thrust the form of a woman—a beautiful woman, with eyes the color of moss and hair and skin the shade of the tree she was born of.

Her body was well-proportioned and delightful, slightly larger than a normal human, her head high enough that Albert had to look up to gaze into her face. She had breasts like a human, and like the rest of her they were fashioned of wood. At the point where a human’s hips would be, she became one with the tree; her only other nod to human physiology was a knot in the trunk that opened several inches below where her torso leaned out towards him. Albert tried not to stare too hard at her breasts, or at her knot. Instead he focused on her face. It wasn’t too hard to do, because as I have already mentioned, she was beautiful. Her smile was bright, although as Albert approached she yawned. She reached her arms above her head and stretched, as though she’d just awakened from a long and satisfying sleep—which, in fact, she had.

“Bertie,” she said. Her voice sounded deep and sleepy, but pleased. “I just woke up and you are the first person I see.”

“Sylvie,” he replied, his voice pitched high with excitement. “You’re awake!” He cringed at his obvious words, but she chuckled and let her arms fall to her sides.

“Oh, my dear Bertie. Come closer so I can see you. You always change so much when I’m asleep.” Albert obeyed her, stepping close enough that she could put her hands on his face, run them through his hair. “You’re so warm, Bertie.” Although her skin was chilly her touch was tender, and as she caressed him his eyes slipped closed. He allowed himself to fall in with the forest. He listened to the breeze sing through the branches, still naked but just waiting for the chance to bud, inhaled the scent of the earth, felt the song of the birds and the movement of the trees and Sylvie’s soft voice, murmuring his name. “Bertie, Bertie, Bertie.”

Sylvie always called him Bertie, as he’d been introduced to her by his mother when he was a very small boy. He’d left that name far behind, along with his childhood. If anyone else called him that now it would be strange, but coming from Sylvie’s lips that silly name was a benediction, and it always had been. Always would be. 

After that first time they met his mother explained that the strange lady in the tree was a dryad, a spirit of the forest. “Sylvie takes care of us, Albert,” she’d explained to him. “And we take care of her.” That year, Mama and Papa taught six-year-old Bertie what that meant: he was to Sylvie with utmost respect, to trim her branches regularly, and to lay offerings at her roots—the finest organic compost, made on the farm and kept exclusively for her all year long. 

And then there was the most important, overarching rule: Give Sylvie whatever she asks for. Albert took this rule seriously. Until, a few years ago, she started making some very special requests of him. 

When he’d asked her if his father or uncle or mother had done these things with her she’d laughed and said of course not. He’d chosen to believe her.

Albert came back to himself when Sylvie’s lips pressed against his. They were soft, somehow, smooth and pillowy, but cold, and he moved his mouth to cover hers as though he might warm her up. She chuckled and tugged him away by his hair.

“Dear Bertie,” she said, and he opened his eyes again to look up into hers. They were serious, just the hint of a smile at their corners. “I’ve missed you.”

“You’ve been asleep,” he replied. She chuckled.

“I can miss you while I’m asleep. I dream, you know.”

That surprised him. “Do you… what do you dream about?”

“I dream about the forest, asleep in the winter.” Her fingers curled through his hair. “I dream about snow, which I’ve felt, but never seen. And I dream about you, of course.”

She said of course and it made Albert’s heart sing. “I dream about you, too,” he admitted.

She grinned, but just as quickly cringed. Albert stepped back and ventured a glance down at her chest. He had seen that expression before, and he knew what it meant. A drip of pale yellow liquid fell from the dark nipple of her left breast, followed quickly by another drip from her right. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Full,” she answered, letting go of his hair and raising her hands over her head again, bending them behind her so her elbows rested on either side of her head. Albert tugged off his leather gloves and let them fall to the ground, then brought his hands to her breasts and cupped them gently in his palms. They were cool and smooth, and although his skin recognized them as wood they gave under his fingertips. They were heavy and full. 

“So warm,” she murmured. 

Albert gave them a tentative squeeze and Sylvie whined as thin streams of liquid sprayed out in all directions, dousing his hands and landing across his cheek. His tongue darted out to catch a trace that landed at the corner of his mouth. “Bertie,” she groused, “you’re teasing! Don’t tease me.”

Albert didn’t think he was a smart man, but he knew that when a dryad tells you not to tease her that you need to stop teasing. So he did what he knew she wanted him to do; he took one of her nipples between his lips and suckled it, gulping down the sweet liquid that flooded his mouth. It flowed so freely that it dripped past his lips and threatened to choke him. Sylvie held his head and spoke to him through it, beautiful nonsense, as she whined and whispered and sighed. He swallowed it all, drinking and drinking until it slowed to a trickle and he switched to her other breast and did it again.

“Please, Bertie,” Sylvie murmured, squirming beneath his touch. “Please. I need you.” Albert’s pulse quickened. Without taking his mouth off her, he unzipped his jeans and pulled out his cock, which was already hard and yearning for Sylvie. Truthfully, he had been yearning for her touch since she fell asleep back in the autumn. His hand found her knot; it was soft, like her breasts, and dripping with a sweet slick. He pressed his fingers into it and it opened readily, making just enough space for him to fit. Without delay he thrust in, and he gasped at the sensation, both odd and familiar. He had missed her so much through the cold months of winter. She gasped, too, and whispered his name, over and over. Albert thought that he would never get tired of hearing Sylvie say his name. He held her nipple in his mouth and gripped her bark with the tips of his fingers. It was thick, cold and hard, biting into his skin, but it kept her close. The pain was worth it.

He came with a shuddering moan and she laughed, a joyous sound echoed by the dancing branches of the trees around them. She milked him until he was dry, and only then did she allow him to pull away from her. Her breast was drained, too, the flow slowed to a mere trickle.

“I feel so much better, thank you,” she said, returning her fingers to his hair. She had always been fascinated by his hair—thick and long even when he was a child—and he luxuriated under her attention.

“You’re welcome. I love to do that with you.”

“I know you do,” she said, amused. “I like it too—tapping your sap, it’s only fair. Now it’s time to hook me up, I think, so I don’t get so full again.”

Albert went to his bag and pulled out the last pieces—two plastic cups joined by a belt with a buckle, several feet long, and each cup attached to its own set of tubing. He’d fashioned the set-up himself. Sylvie held the cups against her breasts and Albert pressed a kiss to each before he slowly walked the belt around the trunk of her tree, making sure that the buckle stayed in the front—this way it was easy for her to remove it if she wanted to. He hooked the cups to the tubes that passed through the thicket several feet away and tested the connection to make sure it was good.

“Does that feel good?” He walked back to Sylvie and took her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers.

“It does, thank you. Just enough suction to keep the sap moving.” Albert hummed and pressed her fingers against his cheek. They were so cold, yet they were warmer than any person he’d ever touched. She was warm. She was everything. “Come back and see me tomorrow?”

“Of course.” He kissed her fingers, one after the other. “As soon as I’m done tapping.”

“It’s lovely to see you again, Bertie.” She grasped his chin and lifted his face up to look into hers. “You are my favorite part of waking up.”

“And you’re mine,” Albert answered, standing on his toes to give her a kiss before he turned to walk back through the thicket.