“Don’t be lazy, Bessie.” I switched her haunches, and she lurched forward into her stall. She gave me sad eyes. I smiled, “You’ll like the machine.” I had mail-ordered it from an independent manufacturer of milking devices. I figured they knew what they were doing, their factory being in Ohio.

My family was from that state. We moved to California when I was a toddler. Our farm had to be sold to pay off debts. We would have fallen into poverty if the local grange hadn’t put out the word. Word came back of a good job out west. So we packed up the truck and hauled a few belongings to Sonoma county, arriving on gas fumes. Dad sold the truck to the towing man in exchange for a lift to Camber Morgan’s Dairy Farm. It was the last farm of its kind for a hundred miles. The surrounding vineyards sounded like laughter when wind rustled their great leaves.

Camber Morgan shook hands with my dad, welcoming the family. We were promised a roof over our heads and plenty of honest work for as long as we could do the work. Camber had no grudge against migrant workers, but he wanted employees. Dad thanked Camber. “I’m Paul Billings. This is Elizabeth.” He pronounced Mom’s name, ‘Elisabet.’ “And my son, Scott Billings.”

“Aw, you can call me Scooter, Mr. Morgan.” I kicked a dirt clod and watched it roll three feet. I wasn’t too happy about moving and losing my friends. He seemed like an okay guy though.

Mr. Morgan knelt down. “Look me in the eye, Scooter.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

I pouted and, looking up, glared. “What?”

“Scott!” Mother snapped.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Billings, your son’s got strength behind his eyes. This new life won’t break him. If any of you had weak eyes I’d put you all on a train back to where you came from.” He lifted his eyes from mine, stood, and told my father. “This farm needs strength to manage and strength to work. I’m not talking about lifting and hauling. There’s plenty of that too. I’m talking about character, will, grit. If you don’t have it, this farm will eat you like snared rabbits. If you have it, my land will make you stronger.

We didn’t sleep that night until we had unloaded our belongings into the small but stalwart shack that would be our new home. We bid the tow man farewell. He bid my father, “Morgan’s a good man, Mr. Billings. He’ll do your family right. But he’s a fool who thinks this valley should be full of cattle instead of grapes. Save what you can before the valley folk make his land too expensive to operate.”

“What did he mean, Daddy?” I asked after the tow man took the last thing of value from my folks.

“A lot of rich folk own private vineyards around here. They got their money from companies in the city, and they spend it like you and I piss, without a notion for where it splashes.”

“I’ll marry a rich girl.” I told my father.

He offered his hand, and I shook it. Dad’s thick, calloused fingers buried mine. “It’s okay if you don’t, Scott. Mr. Morgan is no fool. Our boss’s hand was as rough as anyone we knew back home. The only fool to worry about is a lazy fool.”

“This is our home.” Mother declared.

Dad took off his clothes and got in bed with her. They fucked while I turned away on my sleeping pad and dreamed of the rich girl I would marry.

Five years of honest work put strength in my bones and in my flesh and in my heart. I stood, crying openly over Dad’s closed coffin. Mom gripped my hand with a power twice her husband’s. I didn’t feel anything but loss. Mom gripped hard to forestall the tears behind her eyes. There were strangers around us, gravediggers, a pastor, and neighbors we hardly knew who wanted to ‘support’ us. Camber Morgan kept between them and Mom and I. The box sank into the earth. Shovels heaped dirt down over it.

I led Mom back to our home. Halfway, she unclenched my hand and let her flood loose. “Paul!” She sobbed. “I’m broken without you.”

“Mother!” I snapped. “The cows need milking.” I trudged off to the barn. She caught up in time to help me haul the full, stainless steel jugs onto Mr. Morgan’s flatbed truck. Night had fallen, and it was cold enough to prevent spoilage. Camber would drive the milk to the fancy, organic foods company that was ever challenged to meet a swelling demand. “Those idiot city folk saved us,” Mr. Morgan smiled after signing the first contract a year after he’d hired us. Had he known?

A year after my father’s death, we moved into Mr. Morgan’s house. He was a generation older than Mom, but when he proposed she didn’t hesitate. I know for a fact their first fuck was on their wedding night. Mom slept with me until that day. The three of us worked too hard to allow shenanigans.

It was the work that tied the knot between Mom and Mr. Morgan. We woke early and toiled late, every day, together. The pride we took in it wasn’t selfish. It had married them long before speaking their vows to a pastor. For the same reason, I accepted him as my example of manhood.

“Never call me, Father, Scooter. Yours may be in the ground, but he’ll see you become a man.” He offered his hand. “You’re not my son, but you’re not my employee anymore either. Be my apprentice.”

I shook it with a grip that would make Father proud. “Yes, Sir.” I agreed.

I became a man when I was fourteen. I was nearly six feet tall and still growing. I had a frame that could work from first light to last. That’s not what made me a man. Camber Morgan died of colon cancer. He was fifty six, and I inherited the responsiblity of my life.

The hospice people helped to dig his grave, having bonded with my father-in-law on his deathbed. Mother refused to see the body. She had his coffin buried between his first two wives and one daughter.

Two strong men and one stronger woman could keep up with the farm’s work. I had worked harder than any man might expect of a young teen, but chances were missed. Mistakes were made. Not three weeks after Camber’s passing, a representative from the organics label paid out our contract’s early termination fee. “We can’t afford a farm with declining output.”

“We’ll hire migrants.” Mother promised.

“Mrs. Morgan,” The man sighed. “It’ll take a year to bring unskilled laborers up to the job. Your cows are aging and aren’t calving enough to sustain your herd. The price of dairy cows is astronomical because they are so rare in Sonoma. Wealthy people here own them for pets. You can’t afford to buy more, and there isn’t a bank in the world that would lend sufficient capital to sustain your business, given your financials.”

I knew this man, not well, but Camber had trusted him. He was being straight with us. He hated what he said, but he was a good man to say it.

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“Sell.” He didn’t talk down at me. “Your father never took a dollar in debt. The land and herd and property are free and clear. Invest the money. Live closer to the Sierras where its cheaper to live. It’ll put you through college and let your mother retire early.”

Camber wasn’t my father, but I accepted this man’s respect.

“We’ll think about it.” Mother ended the conversation.

We waved goodbye as he drove off in his electric powered car.

Returning to the house, Mother broke down. I got out the farm’s books and tried to figure out some kind of plan. An hour later, Mother hadn’t stopped crying. I went to her. “Mom?”

“I’m pregnant, Scott.”

The first six months of carrying didn’t slow her down. Her heart slowed her down. In the middle a day, every few weeks, she’d stop, catch herself on something stable and bawl her eyes out. By then we had culled our herd, selling the oldest half and putting a couple in the barn freezers. We’d found a few local markets, upscale, which had a market for fresh, raw milk. Mother drove the milk, as far as a hundred miles sometimes, until the truck engine cracked. She called the house from sixty miles away, sobbing.

We scrambled to find a replacement. I bought one from a neighboring winery. The woman was happy to sell it cheap. I looked it over, drove it around a bit, and bit her hook. The transmission seized up a month later. I went to speak with her, but she came to the door with a pair of dogs. “Don’t blame me, if you can’t tell a lemon from a grape.” Her sneer was accompanied by growls.

I crouched down and looked at them dogs until they stopped growling. I reached out my hand, and they licked it. “You’re right, Mrs. Vale.” I stood and turned my back on her.

Mother was seven months pregnant then. “We don’t have cash for another truck.” She didn’t cry, but her eyes were misty. I consulted with the garage that had employed the man who once towed my father’s truck. He had been killed by a drunk diver one night, while hitching a BMW to his truck. A woman ran the garage now, Ms. Theresa Paiyu.

I called her, and she promised, “I’ll put a call out for a replacement transmission, Scooter. I’m not surprised it failed after only two hundred ‘K’. These vineyard folk can afford fancy brands and replacing them every three years. The only quality the British manufacturer of your truck sells, are dreams. Brits lost everything except their dreams of empire, after World War II.”

I grinned and scratched my neck. “I don’t know much about other countries, Ms. Paiyu.”

“You missed an education, but you’re a better man than any boy in school.”

“That’s kind of you, Ma-am. Peace and prosperity to you and your family.” I drove away on my compact tractor. It was the only operating vehicle the farm owned. Took two hours to return to the farm.

Mother accosted me that night. “If we can’t get the milk to market, it’ll spoil. And we can’t dump it, or the farm commissioner will cite us for polluting the watershed.”

“Worry about the baby, Mom. I’ll handle it.”

“Maybe, we should buy a truck on credit.”

“Would Camber do that?”

She didn’t answer. She retreated to her room. She kept a full box of tissues there.

I looked up at the stars, not sleeping that night. While pacing the land in moonlight, I heard mother. I went to her window. The curtain was closed but I heard her orgasm a second time. I left from embarrassment, but that didn’t stop me from jacking off behind the garden shed. I needed a woman. I wasn’t yet fifteen. There were no women in the valley who would abide me.

The house phone rang, the next day. It was Mrs. Vale. “I’ll write a check for what you paid for the truck, Mr. Billings. Please come pick it up.” She sounded imperious.

“No, thank you, Ma-am.” I hung up and went to work. The first day, we filled all of the freezers with milk. I called every market who bought from us, to discuss the situation. Most of them had greater troubles to deal with than a family supplier. Some took the extra effort. I wrote down their names on a pad of paper. I hired a few migrants who owned small trucks to drive milk to those few remaining businesses who had cared enough. We took a small loss on every delivery, but the milk flowed.

“My father wants to thank you, for the side work, Senor Billings.” Bartoli Stemo bid me.

Lopez Stemo replied in proud Spanish and waited for his son’s translation.

“He wants to invite you to our home. There’s a party tonight. Your mother is welcome too.”

“Thank you. I’m grateful for your family’s help, Bartoli.”

Mother told me afterwards, “I don’t want no Mexican tom-foolery. Tell them, I’m too heavy with child.”

I shrugged and left her to do the evening chores.

“Frieda is my matre.” Bartoli Stemo introduced me to her, his two sisters, five cousins, two uncles and an aunt who looked like an older sister. “Lena Alvarez.” She wore a black shirt. It didn’t darken the party one bit. When you’re poor, living in a bunkhouse with a wood stove and two ice chests, every night is a party. I drank tequila that night. They gave me the worm. Awful stuff. Bartoli had driven me to the vineyard who had hired them. Lena drove me home after the party.

“Why the black shirt?” I asked stupidly.

“I lost my husband, Lopez’ brother, last year. It is for mourning.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Lopez does thank you for the work, Mr. Billings-”

“Call me Scooter.”

“I need to tell you, the party was for me. I didn’t have a child. I’m family, but I didn’t take their name. They want me to seduce you.”

“Hell, yeah!” I leaned in for a kiss. I fell on the driver’s seat.

Lena had quickly exited the truck. She walked around the cab, shaking her head. “Mio Dios.” She opened my door. “Let me help you to your manor.” She walked beside, steadying me with a hand on one shoulder.

Mother met us at the door. She had waited up. Her face was grim. “Scott?” She stepped onto the porch. “Is he alright.”

“Your son is too young to drink, no?”

“You and your family should know better.”

“Si, Mrs. Billings.” Lena let me slump into my mother’s arms. “Don’t blame him. My brother in-law, like my late husband, is a mean bastard.” She stomped back to the truck and drove off, dirt spitting from the wheels.

“A woman like that will give you a disease, Scott.” She told me the next day, for maximum impact when my head was splitting.

“Ain’t no harm done.” We went to work.

A mercedes drove up to the house in the evening. Mrs. Vale knocked on the door, to no avail. Snooping, she found mother and I in the barn, unhooking collectors from teats. Her nose twitched upon entering. She strode up to my mother. “I don’t want to be known as a cheat, Mrs. Morgan.” She held out a check.

Mother accepted it. Leaving, the vineyard owner flashed me a proud look. There was something else in her eyes too. I nodded thanks.

We spent the money on a reconditioned transmission for the truck with enough left over to pay Ms. Paiyu to overhaul a few other of its critical parts.

Mother returned to delivering milk to a reduced number of small time markets. We were barely making ends meet.

At eight months, Mother went into labor. My brother was stillborn. She had to stay in the hospital for a week. Fortunately, we kept our insurance paid up.

I offered Lena the work. We started fucking on the third day. It happened in the barn. After unhooking my cows from the milker, I held up one cup to Lena’s breast. “Those are begging for children.” If she had slapped me, I would have apologized.

When mother returned home, I drove Lena into town and introduced her to Ms. Paiyu. They fell into rapid-fire Spanish. I imagined the mechanic was a matador, leading a bull to slaughter. Quite the opposite, she hired Lena. Mrs. Alvarez moved into a room above the garage. I helped her carry her things. We fell on the bed for a goodbye fuck.

Mother was a wreck. She slept long hours, only did housework. I missed several deliveries the next week. I hired Bartoli to drive the milk after that. “You are smarter than my father believes.” He confessed. He didn’t have a permit to drive anything but farm equipment, but I trusted him. The dairy resumed bleeding money.

Property taxes came, and I scrambled to pay them. I had to sell a cow. Mrs. Vale saw my ad. “She’s adorable.” She told me but didn’t touch it. Her migrants herded the tame beast into a trailer meant for horses. It was a tight fit, but the drive would be short. “If you ever miss her, Scott, please do visit.” I caught her meaning. My time with Lena taught me what was in her eyes. I didn’t have the time, and I didn’t like her calling me, “Scott.”

Winter hit us with powerful cold, that year. Two of the barn heaters failed, and we lost a calf. I cursed my luck. Mother had recovered somewhat. She could work the garden as well as the house. I came to bed, dead tired every night.

I rose early, every morning, to keep the dairy operating.

Bartoli arrived in the spring with his two uncles, Amos and Cal. “They will work for bed and food.” The rest of his family went to the San Joaquin valley, until next fall’s grape harvest.

I installed them in the cabin that had been my first home on the dairy. Bartoli remained with them. I paid him cash, and let him borrow the truck when needed. He got his driving permit before summer.

Mother complained awful. “They making our first home a sty, Scott. Why do you let them ruin the memory of your father?”

I had never raised my voice to her. “They work hard and are grateful for it. We made a profit, this quarter. I would have had to sell another cow. They work harder than you, Ma.”

“I’ll recover my strength by summer. You wait and see. I’ll show you I’m worth more than two wetbacks.”

“If you ever say that again, I will send you to your family in Ohio.” I swore.

“Your latino bitch has turned you against me!” She cursed.

I had never been so angry. Camber Morgan would have done the right thing. I found myself dragging mother to the barn and tying her up in a stall. “You’ll sleep with the other cows, tonight.”

After an hour, I went to the barn and untied her. “Sorry.”

Mother kept quiet. She went to her room. I heard her crying.

I hadn’t seen Lena since our goodbye fuck. I drove into town the next day. I found her with Bartoli. He had taken the bus early that morning. It was an hour’s walk to the bus stop from the dairy. She was happy to see me. She made hot chocolate for us and talked about learning the mechanic’s trade. “Ms. Paiyu is a good lady, but new cars have too many electronics for her. The garage is not very busy.”

Bartoli shook his head. “All these rich wine makers buy the latest cars.” I saw in his eyes, he didn’t want me here. I guessed why.

I thanked Lena and drove home. I was horny. I took a side road and ended up at the Vale Winery.

“I came to see you, Mrs. Vale.” I told her plain at the door.

We fucked in her hot tub. I fucked her again in her bedroom. “Where is Mr. Vale?”

“I don’t know, fucking someone in the city I assume.” She petted her dogs from the bed. She looked me in the eye. “He would be okay, if he found out.”

I felt stupid then. I left soon thereafter.

When I returned to the dairy, Mother was yelling at Amos and Cal. “You lazy fools! If you don’t mind me, I’ll run you back to your stinking country!”

“Mother, I need to speak with you in the house.” I told her, livid red.

Inside, she sputtered, “They were bending the milk tubes!”

“I never assign them the milking, Mother. Why did you?”

“You weren’t around, and it was time.”

“You could have managed, if you’re recovered.”

She looked away. Tears crept into her eyes. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand you were abusing the help.”

“I’m not sorry.” She hissed.

That earned her first full night, tied up in the barn.

The next morning, I couldn’t tell if she was penitent or not, but the dairy’s operation resumed without serious incidents.

Mrs. Vale started calling, every few days. I told her to stop after the third week. I fucked her once during that time.

“I’ll divorce my husband.” She tried to bring me back to her bed.

I left immediately thereafter.

After telling her to stop calling, I slammed the phone down. It rang.

“Scott! Something terrible!” Lena cried. “Bartoli stole the garage’s money!” That was the tip of a terrible iceberg.

The garage was bound to fail. After losing its ready cash, Mr. Paiyu divorced his wife and took the kids, accusing her of embezzling the money. She almost was convicted.

Lena arrived soon thereafter like a thunderstorm and flushed the two Stemo brothers out of the cabin! I didn’t think that was fair, and I told her so.

“I’ll work harder than both of them, and I’ll figure out your machines.” She wanted the same deal her brothers-in-law got, room and board. After her ‘nephew’s’ betrayal, the entire family was blacklisted from working the wineries in Napa and Sonoma.

I was now fifteen and a half, and my balls were still making stupid decisions.

The police did catch Bartoli. He had been dumb enough to return to his family in the San Joaquin. The money recovered was just enough to pay the garage’s debts and a little more. Ms. Paiyu, drove up in her Toyota truck towing a cattle carry. She needed my help to lead the animals within to the barn.

“Scott, I don’t what I’ll do here, but you’re the only person in the valley who I trust. Accept this bull and two cows, and give me work. Lena said I could live with her.” The stronger truth was, no one in town trusted her. However exhonerated by the law, she was still indigenous. I trusted her.

“Call me, Scooter, Ms. Paiyu.” I held out my hand.

“Theresa.” She shook it.

Some of Mother’s strength did return, but she’d lost her head for the dairy’s attention intensive chores. I had to rely on Theresa and Lena’s affinity for machines when I was busy elsewhere. I told Mother to double the size of the garden. That would save some grocery expenses.

One happy surprise, I began to enjoy handling the business side of the dairy. I spent incremental hours, driving to every small market in every small town up and down three agricultural counties, flogging our milk. I established a network of pick up points until Mother only had to drive the milk cans to the closest markets. They kept extra in their refrigerators. Markets farther out would buy some of the cans for a reduced price. They hauled and bottled it, at their sites.

Margins were razor edge thin, but slowly, our business grew. Morgan Billings Milk became a favored brand across the vine ravaged countrysides and valleys.

During that time, I had affairs with women grocery owners or their wives, hotel maids, and the occasional waitress. I didn’t think it was right to be fucking permanent employees, however randy they were. The desperate one was Mrs. Vale, or as she wanted me to call her, Julie.

“I miss you, Scott, and want you terribly.” She would text. I had bought a smartphone. How she got my number, I didn’t know, but I assumed everything about me was public knowledge on the internet. Theresa helped me to tame that computerized beast, over the course of a year.

When I turned sixteen, output at the Morgan Billings dairy dropped by a third. I had to miss an early property tax payment. I planned to pay by the late fee deadline and cover the fee as well. Before then, I needed to figure out the problem.

It turned out, everyone, including Mother, had been burning themselves out to maintain high output. Upon wrecking their physical limits, their work suffered. Efficiency plummeted. The cows produced as much milk as ever, but a lot more of it was spilled, contaminated, or left unmilked. The cows suffered too.

At first, Theresa had implemented several improvements to the workflow. These produced significant boosts to our output. But the processes she invented were a little tricker to perform. Mistakes were magnified. Mother was unable to comprehend some of them. She harbored increasing resent for her darker skinned, more educated peers, but she knew what would happen if she expressed them.

After consulting with the three women, I called every market and told them, Morgan Billings was taking a holiday.

That didn’t mean work stopped. We spent days cleaning everything, fixing everything broken, even resorting to milking the cows by hand. But compared to the average operations day, it was a vacation.

We reconsidered the processes we were using and found compromises that helped to ease the workload. We wouldn’t produce as much, but hopefully we could sustain production for the foreseeable future. When the dairy resumed shipments to the markets, some of them wrote us off. A few didn’t like that we weren’t 100% reliable. I wrote them off as people I didn’t have to fight anymore for business. Most of them were the children of hippies, expecting a lot of privilege from mother nature.

Our lower overall output of milk was just enough to supply the reduced demand. Morgan Billings settled into a steady business.

Something struck my bedroom window in the middle of the night. I woke. We didn’t own guns. We couldn’t afford them. I opened the curtain, standing fully naked, looking out the window. Mrs. Vale put her hands together. “Please, I need you, Scott.”

I told her to leave. She refused.

Julie found herself tied within a stall, in the stench that still wrinkled her nose. She cursed at me. The cows didn’t care. I slept well.

“Why is a white woman tied in the barn?” Lena met me before breakfast.

“Is she awake?”

“I didn’t wake her.”

“Finish loading the deliver truck. Get Mom to help if you want.” I marched to the barn. Lena wouldn’t want Mother’s help. Mother glared at them when I wasn’t around. She would do the work, but never without contempt.

“Get up.” I untied Mrs. Vale.

“No. Scott. I beg you.” She clung to the rope still tied to the stall. “You can take me here. I want it. I don’t care. All I can think about is being your woman.”

I don’t know what came over me, then. I remembered tying my Mother here. Julie was only slightly younger. I took Julie from behind and filled her cunt with my cum. “I shouldn’t have done that.” I chided myself after releasing my pent up need.

“I could have you arrested for rape!” Julie hissed. “I won’t. I promise, never. I’ll come back, here, if that’s what you want. I’ll do it, anytime of day.” She looked into my eyes, perfectly serious. “You make me feel owned.”

I could have fucked her a second time, but I had to help Lena. Mrs. Vale drove away.

“I bet you needed that.” Lena smirked, closing the tailgate. “Now that you can get white pussy, I guess my dark one is less acceptable.”

“I don’t fuck the help.”

“That’s not what I remember.”

“You were here for a week.”

“It was a good week. I’ve missed it.” She took the keys to Mother. The day’s full work began for us.

After the evening milking was finished, I showered and dressed for supper. Lena didn’t show up at the table.

Theresa chewed on a spoonful of stew and mumbled. “She needed to do something in the barn.”

I searched for her after eating. Damn if she hadn’t tied herself up in a stall. She had even prepared a speech. “I heard what the white lady said, about you owning her. Well, I’m here to tell you, if I didn’t have this job, I wouldn’t have anything. You own me more than you own that rich bitch.”

“Is this some kind of protest, to get a raise.” I looked grim.

“Yes.” Lena exhaled. “But not of money.” She lifted her skirt. Naked beneath, she bent over.

“Good, because nobody on this farm is getting a salary.” I unzipped my pants and enjoyed Lena’s cunt from behind.

We rested together in the hay. Mother found us clothed but obviously compromised.

“Don’t think I’ll bless you marrying this slut.” She spat and turned. I caught up with her and stopped her in her storming tracks. “Apologize, Mother.”

“Never!” She threw an evil look behind her.

Lena approached. “Mrs. Morgan, I will never marry your son. I don’t want to own him or anything else of yours. Beyond that, what we do is OUR business.”

Mother glared at the ground. I released her. Lena went to eat. I headed out to check on the farm. Mother stopped me with a sob. “Scott! I know I’m terrible, but you’re all that I have. I’ve lost everything. I can’t even work like I use to.” She looked up at me. “If I lose you, I’ll die.”

“That’s no excuse for being rude.”

Mother didn’t come out of her room the next morning. I went to her. She lay in bed. “I feel useless.”

“Take the day, Mother. Tomorrow, I want to see you in the garden. I can’t trust you to drive the milk anymore.”

“Yes, Son.”

I felt like a resting that day. I conferred with Theresa.

“We can handle little hiccups.” She referred to Mother’s lapse. “But we’ll need to replace the heaters which didn’t fry last winter. How’s our cash on hand?”

“Low. I just paid our property taxes and the late payment fee.”

“We could bring the calves into the main house.” Theresa smirked at me.

“What?” I knew she was kidding. I meant what’s her deal, and she knew I meant that.

“Now that you’re using the barn for house activities.” Her smirk changed to a grin. “Lena tells me everything.”

So much for what her and I do being OUR business. “Jesus, I expected you to be the adult around here.”

“You know, I’m a lesbian.” She tested me.

I felt stupid then. I knew what the word meant, but I didn’t know shit about women loving each other. “You were married. You had kids.” I babbled.

I didn’t hate Hortense, not until the end, but never bring up my children, Amigo.”

I backed away. She softened.

“Lena’s a free spirit. I knew that when I hired her at the garage. I’ll admit, I hired her for the sex, but I paid by teaching her how to fix machinery.” Theresa scrutinized me. “How’s that for being adult?”

I blushed. “This farm is screwed.”

“Don’t confuse fucking with screwing, and you’ll be fine, Scott.”

“Fine.” I changed the subject. We stuck to business for the rest of the day.

The next time I figured Lena and I had time to fuck, I invited her to my room.

She refused. “Your mother’s in that house. I couldn’t do it in there, and I won’t do it where Theresa and I live.” We ended up fucking, missionary position, in the barn’s attic. It was a nice change from a stinking stall. This time, nobody troubled us.