Part 7
Lena gave birth. It was a horrible, noisy, bloody affair. I swore twice to rush her to a hospital, but Aliese drove me out of the house. She yelled the ultimate insult, "Jim would have had more nerve at this, than you!" Lena delivered in Mother's bedroom, a girl. "Hanna." She named her. "Hanna Billings."
We took her to the hospital, the next day. The women, including Julie, handled the paperwork, I stared at the baby like a dumb ass when the nurse held Hanna for the doctor's examination. Julie had her pregnancy checked. The women didn't let me see the receipt but promised our health plan covered most of it.
We returned home and showed Hanna to Mother. She wept and swore she wasn't worthy to touch it. "Bless you, little one. May you get to be much stronger than your stupid grandma."
The women returned the baby to Lena in mother's old room. I knelt beside my mom. "I don't know what to do with you." I cried.
"Don't be a baby." Mother growled suddenly. "I'll walk to the Pacific and swim out until I drown if you ever give me cause to doubt your judgement. You imprisoned me here, Scott. It might even do me some good, or so I tell myself. Because you are the rock that keeps this ship's keel steady. I'd rather be a cow than your mother if you can't sort out a problem like me. Last night, you were faced with what being a man really means. If you can't handle it, let a stronger bull take charge."
She meant Theresa, and by bull, she meant bull dyke. Mother hated gays as much as she hated Latinos.
Winter hit with full force. Not one of the heaters failed, except the one in mother's old room. I had let Aliese borrow it until spring. She had to spend her milk earnings for it, though. It snowed once. Aliese knocked on my door, just as I was falling asleep. "The heater's out in my room." She hadn't planned it, but I ended up spilling my seed in her belly that night. A sleepy young man is a stupid young man.
She knew me well enough to not bring it up the next day. "I'll go in to town and get a heater. A cheap one should last until spring. I have some money saved."
"Thank you, but charge it to the family card and buy a good one." I kept eating, chewing my food carefully. I didn't want to appear rushing to get to work. Aliese turned to start breakfast for Mother and Julie. I woke too early to disturb the cattle.
I should explain that the women who lived in the barn, ate their meals at the house and spent a lot of time walking around, outside. Only Aliese was allowed to work, mostly tending to the garden. They took to reading books, which Lena or Aliese fetched from the town library, depending on who drove the milk shipment that day.
I kept my promise. I always milked Julie in private, but she allowed Mother to be present if Mom wanted. They had taken to calling each other, Mad Cows. "What does a cow care, watching a man milk another cow?" She laughed.
Baby Hanna took a significant bite out of our mother's milk supply as expected, but I knocked on the worker house, the instant I discovered a discrepancy. "You're cutting your milk with cow's milk, Lena. Stop it." The figures didn't lie. The amount of Lena production should have dropped more.
"You're right, Scott, and you're wrong. I add cow's milk for variety, not to keep my 'production' up. I'm producing more milk, because Theresa knows how to stimulate me."
I felt stupid again, and Theresa had earned more merit. I thanked Lena for explaining.
Not angry, but not happy, I drove into town and met a woman in a bar. I didn't return until morning. I did use condoms with strangers.
I needed to find my true self again. I had been losing my sense of who I was, as I matured into an unorthodox lifestyle.The work and expectations placed on me, the baby, and Theresa's obvious strength conspired to deprive me of all that had made me strong. Like fear, I faced the challenges, head on, except I was unaware of the obvious distraction from and greatest disruption to my focus. I butted lesser matters.
I worked harder. I took council from my co-workers. I spent more time with the baby. I faced Theresa. "What you're doing for Lena, can you do it for Julie and Aliese?"
She sighed. "I could, but that would hurt Lena. Scott, it's not a big secret. I'm only doing what you stopped doing with Julie." There were no secrets on the farm. It wasn't a rule - it just worked better that way for everyone.
"Is the extra milk worth it?" I was considering doing the special effort myself.
"It has nothing to do with extra milk. It has everything to do with being who you are."
I left, contemplating her hint for days instead of asking right out. I ended up using an excuse to make up my mind.
"Aliese, your three months of probation are up today. You're a full employee with full benefits." By this time, we knew she hadn't caught from our one night together. She had used a second kit out of Lena's original purchase.
"Thank you, Scott." She had always called me Mr. Billings. "I love it here."
Her ernest and firm response slugged me in a place that had no armor. I was suddenly an awkward sixteen year old, inexperienced in one of the most important aspects of being human. I heard myself sputtering.
"Aliese, I-I love you." None of the other things: work, expectations, even little Hanna, Mother, or Theresa, had set me off kilter. It had been Aliese. "Do you love m-me?"
She acted as if a ghost had crossed her shadow. "I-I didn't want you to think-"
I put my arms around her and kissed her. She melted in my grasp, conforming to my hard, young shape. We didn't leave the house that day. At noon, we asked Lena bring sandwiches to Mom and Julie, with the good news.
That night, Julie tried to start her car. It hadn't moved in a year. Mother came to the door. "Put your pants on, Scott. We have a problem."
She let me talk with Julie alone. Julie screamed at me. "It's still my second trimester, damn you! Why won't this stupid, expensive fucking car start?"
"You promised, Julie." I yelled back.
"I didn't promise to let that granola slut twist you around her finger."
I stopped arguing. I wrenched the door open and dragged her out. I took her to her stall and bound her there. "Don't let her go, Mother. I will in the morning." I told Julie, "I'm not going to stop you, except for tonight. I'll jumpstart your car in the morning, if you want. Tomorrow isn't too late to kill the baby I trusted you with."
"Fuck her, Scott." Aliese called from the barn door. She shivered in the shirt she wore. It was all she wore. "I mean it. You've been neglecting her. You let her get surly, and I bet her milk has weakened too."
I didn't argue. I was too angry. Julie threatened the life of one of my babies. Now that I had one, I understood how precious they were. I still believed it was Julie's right to choose, but she was not in any mood to decide something as horrific as abortion.
I nearly made the mistake of simply accepting Aliese' command. What saved me, was all the fucking we had done that day. My dick was as limp as a willow frond. I stilled myself and my thoughts. "Aliese, come here and get me ready."
"Yes, Scott." She unbuckled my belt and pulled down my pants. In my rush to confront Julie, I hadn't donned underwear. My cock hung free behind Julie's smock.
"Mother, you can sleep in the house tonight."
"I won't, Son." I hadn't told her she HAD to. "Aliese is right, you've neglected the poor thing. She's carrying your child, after all. I want to be here, for my friend."
I didn't need Mother to tell me what was right or wrong, or Aliese, for that matter. I needed to listen to them. Now let me tell you something about the power of love. Aliese' hand roused my fucked-out prick hard in ten seconds. Mother turned away for it but turned back when Julie grunted. "Get your hard cock out of me, Scott! I hate you!"
"Julie, you need this." Mother told her.
I fucked the angry bitch, without malice. "I promise, I won't stop you, tomorrow. But I'm going to take care of you tonight, as I think is right."
My mother, and the love of my life, made sure I didn't skimp on caring for Julie all that night. Starting the next dawn, I didn't get an erection for two days.
Julie slept until noon. She woke untied. I had hung her keys on a hook in the stall, after jumpstarting her car and running it until the battery recharged. Aliese had packed Julie's few things.
Julie wept upon waking. Everyone on the farm sat in the main room of the farm house, waiting, drinking tea and coffee. The door opened and Julie entered, wiping her tears. "I can't believe how low I've sunk." She gave the keys to Mother. "I promise, Scott, I'll never use your babies against you, ever again." She knelt before Aliese, "Can you forgive me?"
"I love you, Julie." Aliese kissed her cheek. They hugged. I stood. "Let's get to work."
Spring rains turned our fields to mud. We ran out of winter hay the day I mailed the last of the farm's money to the IRS. The cattle would starve until the sun restocked our fields with green. I had to barter our milk for feed. It was the only way the herd would survive. Our income plummeted, except for the few bottles of mother's milk that had come to command fifteen times the price of cow's milk. The mothers who could afford or who had to buy it for their infants had begun to talk. Their babies hadn't gotten sick during the winter, not one of them. I figured it for dumb luck, but that was the best kind. Even a high price, for the ten bottles we filled each day, amounted to less than enough to feed three women producing milk, let alone three other adults, two who worked a dairy sixteen hours a day. The garden was as drowned as the pastures.
We felt the effects of starvation, after two weeks of steady rains. A cow sickened and I decided to slaughter it. I hated myself that day. It had been with child, but the mother would have died a month before the calf was viable. We buried the unborn calf. The six of us ate its mother's delicious meat. My mother made sure we blessed every meal. Only Aliese refused to partake in saying grace. She muttered, "We should be praying to the cow, not to a spiteful god."
I was a dairyman, not a preacher. I kept the farm working. The sun returned. Grass grew. Mother acted bored when I spent time with Julie. Mom could have walked in the sun while I brought Julie to several climaxes. She said it was her duty to make sure I didn't cheat Julie. I had a vague notion that Mom meant I might have used a dildo instead of my tried and true cock. Theresa talked too much about dildos. I hadn't known they existed until the first week my business partner joined the business.
The great dildo conspiracy unraveled soon thereafter. I always took my time, to enjoy fucking Julie's eager cunt. I didn't just fuck her. I used my hands and my mouth to stimulate those places that worked best for her. I didn't play with her nipples, directly. They were usually sore after being milked. Julie loved a massage while we fucked. My hand were coarse from massaging a cow to get her udders to firm up. I left red marks on Julie's back. She claimed the rougher I massaged her, the better her orgasms. I must not have been rough enough that day. Julie didn't yell so much as gasp and moan when she came on my sperm spewing cock. Hot cum injected into her cunt always sent her over the edge. That day, I heard another gasp and moan. Pulling out of Julie, quietly. I peeked into the next stall. Mother huddled behind the short wall, lips tight, trying to hold back her exhortations while she plunged a fat, silicone dildo in and out of her hairy pussy. I turned around and walked all the way into my house, where I took a long shower.
Aliese giggled. "It's okay, Scott. Your mother is a human being too." Then she surprised me. "I use a dildo sometimes. Occasionally, I just want to enjoy myself by myself."
I had never heard of such a thing. I was always ready to make love with the woman I loved. Fortunately, I'm not one to worry about loving her enough. She hadn't lied or wanted to hurt me. She told me straight. She liked masturbating in addition to fucking me every other chance we had. That didn't mend my broken brain from having seen my mother have sex with herself. It was even weirder, because she masturbated while I fucked Julie. I was helping to get my own mother off. I shuddered, whenever I recalled the sight. I also got quite hard which disgusted me further.
"Oh, and Scott, I'm pregnant." Aliese added with a ridiculous smile. I wished I could have fainted. Of course I congratulated her, until I ran out of congratulatory sperm.
Luckily I always had work to distract me. It was my religion. Calving began. Julie was the first to give birth. Once again, Theresa threw me out of the house when I was totally grossed out and threatened to call an ambulance helicopter.
The next morning, Julie's labor had been very long, she introduced me to Camber Billings. I hugged and kissed her. I held my son and thanked God. He looked perfect.
The doctor agreed that afternoon, after my family had waited three hours in the emergency room. We had called in advance, but there had been an accident at a winery, and a dozen migrant workers had been rushed to the hospital. I told my son, unfortunates were more important than those with better fortunes.
The police arrested me before I could claim my son from the ER.
It wasn't even a scandal. I was booked, charged, tried, and acquitted of bigamy and/or polygamy. They tried me for both. Theresa dredged up a lawyer who was well acquainted with the county's more esoteric laws. Politicians were always adding laws and forgetting ones already on the books. I couldn't be a bigamist, because I wasn't married. I couldn't be a polygamist because having babies with employees was specifically exempted by an 1852 statute. The rancher who owned nearly all of the county's land at that time, told the politicians to write it into law. Locally, that rancher's surname is twice as common as the next most common.
Now, if I hadn't reached sixteen, nine months before Hanna had been born, the cops would have arrested her for child abuse. Basically, I may have dodged a bullet, but I was permanently marked on their radar.
Spring was a time of great change, in nature and the life on our humble dairy farm. We had three strong calves that year. Two were female. Mother started expressing milk about the same time.
Dildoes weren't the only conspiracy she had joined. For the last six months Mother followed a program of stimulating her nipples. Apparently, soon after Aliese began working for us, Julie dismissed Mom's ability to lactate as, no big deal. When Mother asked why, she explained that most women could fire up their milk glands if they stimulated them often enough, especially if they had previously breastfed a child.
I held a company meeting, without Mom or Julie, to discuss the situation. I didn't trust my judgement, and I wanted everyone to witness if not partake in the discussion.
"I understand how gross the idea is to you, Scott." Theresa grinned. "You're a man, a rather ignorant one concerning women, by which I mean no disrespect. To the rest of us, breasts are more than a sex object. I'm a lesbian. To me they are sex objects, but I shouldn't digress. Breasts are meant to feed babies, first and foremost. You placed your mother in a strange position in our, I'll say the F word, family. The farm broke her, but you saved her by confining her to that stall. Of that, I'm devout. She is still part of our family, however lowly placed. She loves you, and her hate for us hasn't manifested since you put her there."
Aliese added, "She's there by her own will. I've offered her room to her, which you agreed to, but she continues to think the barn is in her best interest."
Lena drove the final nail into my stigmata. "She wants to be part of the farm again. She doesn't trust herself to return to work. This is the way she wants to contribute, Scott. I'll be happy to milk her. You need never think about it. It'll just be more milk in the supply."
I chose not to think about it. Milk production increased, but not by much. Mother's breasts weren't driven by the full hormonal engine of having and feeding a baby. She barely managed to fill a bottle a day. I tried not to think about it. That was difficult, when every few days, I spent half an hour plowing Julie's empty but fertile field while mother masturbated. She must know that I learned about her self abuse. Nothing was secret for long on the farm.
Milk revenues decreased. Hanna and Camber had needs that outstripped our most worthy customers. I invited Julie to feed her son, but she refused. "Aliese is his mother. I'm just a cow. If her mother can't make enough, you're welcome to bottle feed Camber with my milk. I won't let him near by breasts." Mother also tried to convince her. Julie stymied both of us. It was almost as if she didn't have a nurturing instinct, but that wasn't possible. Was it? I kept myself too busy to find out.
Aliese could have fed three Cambers. Her milk doubled upon latching the boy to her breast, but he drank a bit more than Hanna. I once confessed to the women, "Treating your milk as a farm commodity will never feel right to me." They laughed. One could make the observation that I treated them as a farm commodity, but not without their consent. I still met with Lena for bi-monthly sexcapades. Neither Theresa nor Aliese wasted energy rolling their eyes. It was just a part of how the farm worked.
Aliese lost her baby in the first trimester. She insisted that we bury it next to the unborn calf buried at the start of spring. I could barely hold my shit together. She had to console me. "Scott, this is not unexpected. It was my first baby. There's a one in four chance of miscarriage. Our next child will have a much better chance. That doesn't mean she wasn't sad. She offloaded several chores in the weeks that followed, to grieve.
...to be continued...