by Tammy Walsh
Mom shifted on her seat.
It was the telltale sign she was pleased.
“Thank you. That’s a very nice compliment.”
“And I think you’re right about the body having a memory,” Clint said. “The body knows what it wants.”
He shot me a pointed look before lowering his eyes back to his plate.
Plenty of men had looked at me that way before but none produced the same reaction in my body.
“Is it hot in here?” I said.
“Open a window,” Mom said. “It’ll be the oven.”
I got up and shoved the one behind me open.
I took a deep breath of fresh air before I returned to the table.
“We could do with a hand around the farm if you’re not up to anything,” Pop said.
“Dad!” I said. “He should be resting! He fell out of the sky! He needs time to recuperate.”
Trust my dad to want to take advantage of a spare pair of hands.
“I’m just saying…” he said. “It might be good for you to get some fresh air and do some light work.”
Clint nodded.
“I would love to help out but you’re going to have to give me some pointers. I’m not sure I’ve ever worked on a farm before.”
I snorted.
“You don’t have to worry about that. Pop has always been good at instructing workers, not so much with doing the work himself.”
“That’s because some of us have worked our fingers to the bone!” Pop said. “For years! The body only has so much mileage.”
If that was true, Pop was a space shuttle that’d been to the moon and back.
Multiple times.
I didn’t say anything.
He could be quite touchy about how his body had begun to deteriorate with age.
Dessert was home-made apple pie with rich creamy custard.
“Have you ever had apple pie before, Clint?” Mom said.
I sighed audibly, and groaned:
“Mom! What did I just tell you about his amnesia?”
“Alright, alright. You never know. Maybe his taste buds will remind him of something.”
Clint ate a slice and melted into his chair.
It was just the response Mom was hoping for.
“Good?” she said, fishing for more compliments.
“Amazing. Maybe I have had apple pie and custard before but I can tell you I’ve never had any that tasted this good.”
Mom beamed like a small child.
“Then let me go get you a second helping!”
“Mom!” I said. “He hasn’t finished the first one yet! He hasn’t even finished his first mouthful!”
“He will by the time I get back. And it always tastes better when it’s steaming hot.”
Clint bent down to scoop more onto his spoon.
As he placed it on his tongue, the flavors zipped up through his nervous system and sent shivers through his body.
He glanced up and noticed me looking at him.
He wore a big smile, making his cheeks bulge.
I wonder if he eats everything with such relish…
My cheeks burned so brightly I considered putting the custard on them to cool down.
When I looked up at him again, he was still looking at me, the dessert forgotten, a new hunger in his gleaming golden eyes now.
I couldn’t meet those eyes.
In all my years in the city, with the various men I’d dated, not one had made me feel shy like that.
I ate my first spoon of apple pie and custard and brazenly licked my lips, my eyes fastened on him.
“Mm,” I said. “That is tasty.”
We looked at each other so hard I thought if I reached up, I could have touched the bond between us.
It disintegrated the moment Mom came back in the room, the kitchen door swinging shut behind her.
“Here it comes!” she said.
She placed the second helping—twice the size of the original!—beside Clint’s first bowl.
“What about me?” Pop said. “Don’t I get a second helping?”
Mom sniffed.
“You know where the kitchen is.”
Pop grumbled as he got to his feet and marched through the door.
Second helpings sounded like a good idea, I thought.
Right after I got my first taste, of course.
I hadn’t felt this upbeat in years.
I could get used to it.
Ras
It’s hard to work when your belly’s stuffed with delicious food.
But it didn’t seem to bother Isabella’s father, Benjamin, much.
He moved with the grace of a man who knew every inch of his farm by heart.
He pinned the barn doors back and headed inside.
Arranged in long rows were a series of bizarre-looking machines with pipes attached to a dome.
“We need to bring the ladies in so we can milk them,” Benjamin said.
“The ladies?” I said, confused. “You want to put Isabella and Esme in these machines?”
I couldn’t imagine they could produce much milk, surely not enough to fill the large containers…
Benjamin was silent for a moment before bending over and slapping his knee, his face screwed up tight.
He clutched his stomach in his hands and rocked back and forth.
“Are you all right?” I said. “Do you need medical assistance?”
Benjamin waved a hand, dispelling my concerns.
“You’d best not let them hear you say what you did. I would be castrated for even thinking such a thing! Although the thought has crossed my mind during the leaner months…”
He slapped me on the back and wheezed with mirth.
I still didn’t understand.
If they weren’t the ladies, who were?
All became clear when he led me into the field behind the barn.
A dozen large creatures with bulging bellies Isabella had introduced me to that morning picked at the grass at their feet and didn’t so much as turn in our direction.
I didn’t have a name for them.
It wasn’t the first time I found myself at a loss for what I ought to call something on this farm.
Much was still unknown to me.
It still confused me I didn’t know the most basic things.
Surely I should have known the names of these animals?
Had the crash rattled my brain somehow?
And if it did, would I ever get that knowledge back again?
Why hadn’t my friends or family or colleagues come to find me?
It was one confusing question after another and I didn’t have an answer for any of it.
One of the cows—that was what Benjamin called them—approached and nuzzled my shoulder.
Her head was big and her nostrils snorted as she looked wondrously up at me.
I smiled and ran my hand over her short hair and the soft skin of her nose.
Her ears flapped and the bell chimed calmly as she shook her head.
“She likes you.”
Isabella drew up alongside me and fussed the cow on the other side of her thick neck.
“How can you tell?” I said.
“It’s easy when you know what to look for.”
Her eyes met mine and held for a moment before she turned away and clucked out the corner of her mouth.
“We should take them inside and plug them into the milking machines. They need to be milked every day.”
I watched as she took the cow by the collar and led her toward the barn.
The cow put up no resistance, its tail swishing with what appeared to be mild excitement.
Everything these creatures did appeared to be mild.
Another cow, this one white with brown patches across its back, nuzzled my shoulder the way the first one had.
I took its collar and led it toward the barn.
I let my eyes roam over Isabella’s ass and muddied rubber boots.
She wore
pants that clung tightly to her thin legs.
I suspected it was to avoid getting dirt on baggy clothes.
She led her cow into one of the machines and shut the gate behind it.
Then she stepped through the fence, ducking low, and I couldn’t help but suck in a breath as the muscles of her ass flexed.
“We attach the machine to their udders which draw out the milk,” she said.
“Does it hurt? I can’t imagine it feels good to have it sucked out like that.”
Her eyes flicked up and met mine again, blue and as unfathomable as the deepest oceans.
“You might be surprised.”
She switched the machine on.
There was a soft sucking noise before the machine found its rhythm and began to draw the milk out of the creature.
“Want to give it a try?” Isabella said, performing that deep dive between the fence slats again.
I knew what I wanted to try with her…
Funny, I thought, that I could have forgotten so much about myself and yet my instincts knew perfectly well how to mate.
I could have rutted with Isabella right then and there wouldn’t have been a single hesitation in my movements.
She stood up close to me, waiting for me to respond.
I’d drifted off again.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said. “But I’m worried I might hurt the poor creature. She doesn’t need an amateur taking care of her.”
“We’re all amateurs at the beginning. Until we figure out what we’re doing, at least. It comes with practice.”
Was I reading things into what she was saying? I wondered. Surely she couldn’t have meant to place an overlay of sexuality to every sentence?
I gulped.
“Uh, yeah. Sure. But give me a hand with this one… I mean, show me how to apply the sucking device… Ah, I mean… Help.”
Isabella chuckled and followed me into the pen.
She handed me the device and showed me how to place it on the cow without her being able to feel it.
“Make sure the suction level is low at the beginning,” Isabella said. “It can come as a shock otherwise. Everyone likes to be warmed up a little.”
She did it again.
Or did she?
Maybe I really was only imagining things.
“Right,” I said, mouth dry.
“Let’s go do the others and then we can do something more fun.”
“Fun?”
She bent over and stepped through the fence slats again.
She was killing me with that ass.
I couldn’t imagine anything more fun than watching her get in and out of that pen a few hundred more times.
Mercy, mercy me.
It took half an hour to affix the machines to each of the cows in the paddock.
By that time, the first of the machines had already finished and we had to return the ladies to a new paddock.
Once we were done, Isabella grinned up at me.
“You did well.”
“I had a good teacher.”
“Better than mine, anyway.”
“Who was yours?”
“My parents. I suppose it’s not their fault. There’s nothing worse than having to get up before dawn to take care of the animals before school. Even worse when you know no matter how hard you scrub, you can never seem to get the stink out of your clothes.”
I chuckled at the thought.
“You can laugh,” Isabella said. “It’s a serious issue when you’re growing up.”
Her eyes flickered and she looked away, disturbed by what she said.
“Sorry.”
“For what?” I said.
“It’s hard to remember you don’t have memories. You should be hanging out in a big city, not around here where you never had much experience.”
“I like hearing about your childhood.”
She smiled warmly.
“You do? Most guys aren’t very good at listening.”
“Then they’re idiots. I could listen to you all day.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Isabella smiled and laughed at the same time.
It was easy to imagine her laughing like that when she was a little girl.
Her eyes were big and wide and threatened to consume me if I drifted too close…
I pulled back at the last moment.
“A good thing your dad doesn’t wear your pants,” I blurted.
The words were out before I could run them through my quality check filter.
How embarrassing.
Isabella ran her hands nervously over her pants.
“No, thank God. The thought of seeing my pop in pants like these… It’s enough to give me nightmares.”
I’d dodged a bullet there.
Good thing she had a good sense of humor.
Then she looked over at me.
“Do my pants bother you?”
“No! Not at all. They’re just… They…”
What?
What were they?
Alluring?
Sexy?
Distracting?
“They’re very… fashionable,” I said. “I never thought you could look so good on a farm. It’s all dirt and mud and poo.”
“Oh yes, lots and lots of poo. You should be here during summer when the temperature’s high and it stinks to high heaven. Then you wouldn’t think it’s quite so beautiful here.”
Her attention drifted off to a small thatch of trees beside the barn.
My instincts reacted of their own volition.
I drifted closer and placed my hand on hers on the fence.
“No,” I said, “I would.”
Because you’re here.
I didn’t know how I could be so forward, not when I knew so little about myself.
But maybe that could be a strength too.
Not knowing much about myself meant I didn’t have to worry about times I’d been rebuffed by other girls or depend on bad advice I’d received.
It meant less got in the way to show how I felt about her.
And I was feeling.
A lot.
“I never thanked you for taking me in like this,” I said. “You didn’t have to.”
“Actually, I did.”
Now it was her turn to look uncomfortable.
Her fingers wrestled with each other and she gnawed on her bottom lip.
“When you came out of the water and I dragged you up onto the shore…”
She looked me in the eye and turned away again.
I drifted closer.
“What?”
“I felt something, something pass between us…”
I couldn’t believe it.
Had she felt the same electricity I had when I first laid eyes on her?
That powerful coursing river that hadn’t abated a single iota since that moment?
“Forget it,” she said. “I’m being stupid.”
“No,” I said, pushing even closer.
She didn’t back down, although she looked on the verge of doing so.
She met my eyes again and her pert breasts almost grazed my chest.
She seemed to take some confidence from us being so close.
“I felt a link like we were meant to meet,” she said. “I don’t know what it means or if it even means anything at all. But that’s the truth of it. I know it sounds ridiculous—”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous. I felt it too. But not there by the side of the lake. It was in the hospital. When I first saw you. When I was conscious, I mean.”
It wasn’t the best, clearest way I could have expressed myself but there it was.
Out in the open.
Her eyes searched my face and she smiled at what she saw there.
“I guess situations like this bring people together,” she said.
I took her hand in mine.
She was shaking.
“Or maybe it means something more,” I said.
Her mask of confiden
ce had been exactly that, I realized.
An act.
“I’m scared,” she said, her voice quivering.
“I am too,” I admitted.
My heart raced, thudding so hard and fast I felt certain she could feel it through my palms.
“Do you ever get the feeling sometimes things happen because they’re meant to?” I said.
“Like fate?”
“Me crashing like that. Where I did. And you being there to rescue me from the lake. None of it feels like a mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.”
Our hands interwove, wrestling for supremacy.
But there was no need to battle.
She would beat me every time.
She always would.
“So… what happens now?” Isabella said.
“I think you know what happens now.”
I placed one of her hands on my waist and the other on my cheek.
She didn’t pull back but her hand froze when she touched me.
“I… I thought about touching you like this so many times,” she said. “And now… Now I’m really doing it.”
I placed my hand on her hip.
To reach my face, she had to reach up, and her jacket rose with it, exposing the skin beneath my fingers.
It was as soft as I thought it would be.
I was desperate to grab that ass that’d taunted me for so long…
But I sensed it was too soon for that.
I would be patient, as hard as it was.
I lowered my lips toward hers.
She went up on her tiptoes to close the distance further…
Clang!
We started back but remained touching.
Small feathered animals Benjamin referred to as chickens clucked and strutted about the barn.
They must have knocked something loose and sent it clattering.
Isabella snorted and shook her head.
I pressed my forehead to hers.
“I guess we should get on with our chores,” Isabella said.
“I guess we should.”
I ran a thumb down her cheek and her broken smile returned to her wide lips.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said.
My thumb paused in stroking her skin.
“I would never hurt you. Why would you say that?”
“I… had a bad experience. That’s why I returned home. My friend… She… She disappeared. I convinced her to speak with a stranger in a coffee shop and he… Well, I don’t know what he did, but I never saw my friend again. It was all my fault.”
