Rapunzel's Game

The burst of soft daylight warming his face as he opened the front door established the moment. Grabbing the shears from the chair on his front porch he began his inspection of the front yard. His front yard. Admittedly he’d never been one for yard work, but he would make this his home, and that meant the cottonwood had to go.

“So old man, let’s you and I speak a moment.” He stood tall before the old tree, addressing it as respectfully as he would any elder neighbor. “I respect your position here, but you’ve let yourself go.” He slid his hand against the bark, searching for the base of the sprouts to clip away.

“It sickens me to haa.. aachew!”, his head whipped sharply as he sneezed from the tree’s pollen. “Well, you get it. I promise to leave you looking like the respectable pillar you are.” Wiping his hands aside he suddenly realized he’d forgotten his gloves on the porch. As he turned back to head for them he heard a giggle from across the yard.

“Oh, so that’s his game, is it?” he responded to his neighbor. “And here I was praising him for providing this lovely view, when all he really wanted was what he saw looking back”, as if he wasn’t as impressed himself. She was just the right kind of girl next door type, and when he found out she’d be living next door when he bought the house from her, well that just about settled it for him. “I promised I’d go easy on him, just enough to keep the air livable.”

“He can be a bit spiteful” she responded. She slid across the yard to wrap an arm around the tree, “but we always had a lot of fun. I never had much success in taming him, though I suppose that’s obvious from his brothers back there.” She flicked her head gesturing to her back yard. From between and above their houses you could see the tall, lumbering cottonwoods draped in their old matted beards. “If yardwork is your thing maybe you could lend me a hand with them sometime.” She smirked, bending forward as women do to catch his eye.
He stooped for his gloves in order to take advantage of the advance. “Well now those two seem dangerous, and I can’t leave a lady in fear.” He held back another sneeze attempting to maintain his green but tough demeanor, rolling slightly to a bow, “I shall don my armor and blade to your aid.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell you what, how about tomorrow I cook dinner after you finish up.”

“She’s just as bad as the old tree”, he thought to himself. “Are you sure you want the help dirtying the carpet?” he asked.
“Well you don’t have to cut them down or anything, just straighten them up. They provide a nice viel shade to the bedroom that I don’t want to lose. It keeps us nice and cool in the morning.”

“Us?” he replied.

She grinned again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her exit imparted the same joy as her entrance.
He returned his attention to the task at hand. This old tree had more to trim than he’d originally realized. “Old man, what am I getting myself into?”

The next afternoon he gathered his gloves and masks, donning them standing tall before his mirror. Far from knightly, he looked more prepared to airbrush a hallway than to slay giants. But it didn’t even phase him. His painters mask imparted the strength of a ninja in his mind. “Let’s get some.”

As he rounded the corner to her back yard various stone ornaments popped into view. An old bird bath half filled with leaves, various small frogs and snakes ornating the naturally short grass. The shadow cast from the two entwined cottonwood trees shaded the entire back yard, actually reaching over the house few feet into the front yard. The light was so low that he could barely make out their trunks in the back corner of the yard. Inspecting the piles of hair-like pollen laying against the fences and ornaments he found himself tripping over a few of the larger yard ornaments displayed near the back. A statue? He tried to make out the expression on the warrior’s face when he notice a dim beam of light break the dark. “Opening the curtains to watch me work,” he thought. She hadn’t seen him just yet. He tilted his head slightly from behind the statue to see what she was doing. The way she tossed her hair around reminded him an old shampoo commercial, and he found himself continuing to stare as she began undress herself.

“Aaahch…” he muffled his sneeze as to not alert her, only to quickly pull the mask away from his face. The cottonwood had already began to cover the inside of the mask and tangle on his coat. He reached for his spare from his pocket and returned his eyes to the window. She was down to a french bra and silk panties at this point, he smiled mostly forgetting to lift the mask to his face. She turned and walked to a full length miirror near the back of the room, giving him an amazing view. He slowly lowered to one knee, squinting a bit to see farther. The foliage seemed denser here, but it was sufficiently soft as to quiet his movement.

He untangled his back foot and rest his chin on his hand, arm on knee. Right about then she bent over to pick up her dress and hold it up high. She turned side to side, revealing that the bra was clearly gone. The restrictive spot he’d chosen had paid off. Even through the spider-web like threads that annoyingly fell into his line of sight he’d gotten an eye full.

As the wind picked up the foliage around him seemed to whip up quickly, or was that just his heart beating fast? He gathered himself to get back to his work, reaching for the shears and turning about. But, as he stepped towards the tree, his foot was caught beneath a snake.

“Silly stoner” he mumbled, reaching down to move the obstacle with the shears the cottonwood began to entangle around the instrument and his hand. As he pulled away from it the skin between his gloves and coat became increasingly exposed from the stretching. Was it winding towards him? As the knotted hair wrapped around, bruised and burned his skin he began to panic from the restraint.

“Calm down, you’re not going to freak out over getting caught in some plants” he thought. As he worked in vain to remove himelf from the web he was violently thrust forward from behind by a large branch. Shaking off the daze he saw that it had pierced his shoulder through. Terrified he looked up to call to her, but she had already looked up from her bend.

She stared him in the eyes through the reflection of the mirror. “Like you said, it’s the best view available.” He sat slack jawed as she slipped off her panties and, in the view of her gorgeous nude body, reached to slap the sting from his neck as the last branch pierced though his spine, through his throat and out his right cheek.