A heavy sense of guilt began to settle in her gut, a spiritual dissonance that felt fundamentally unnatural. As a daughter of the earth, she was meant to be in harmony with the cycles of life to observe the growth, the decay, and the natural flow of existence.
But this? This felt like a distortion.
She was trying to manufacture a sensation, to trick her own body into a peak by using a phantom version of a man who wasn't even there. It felt calculated, selfish, and deeply, unnervingly solitary.
'Mother Nature... forgive me,' she whispered in the sanctuary of her mind, her leaves drooping slightly, losing their vibrant, tightened curl and becoming limp and heavy. 'Am I betraying the balance?'
'Am I to be a vessel for the forest, or merely a slave to this... this fleshly desire?'
