I have seen the farm, from the distance, on one of my mountain hikes. I could have gone there, walking down on one side of the valley, crossing the brook at its bottom, climbing up the slope on the other side — the border is not guarded, it is hardly marked, I could have gone there and been back and still reached my destination long before dark, but what would have been the use?

I took the the water bottle and a piece of bread out of my back pack, sat down on the trunk of a conveniently fallen tree, and took in the view.

The landscape was the same as on this side of the valley, hilly and wooded, with large grass-covered clearings. The high mountains were some distance off, but already here the slopes were so steep that the only feasible kind of husbandry was raising livestock.

My resting place was a few hundred feet higher than the farm, so I looked down upon it, across the valley. Had I not broken my binoculars the day before, I could have seen more clearly, but even so it was obvious that it was still the same idyllic place that it must have been those years ago. I saw the main building, the stables, the sheds, and the dozen or so one-room cabins which they rented out to tourists. I could not see the chickens and the pigs, but I made out the sheep, and the cows, peacefully grazing on the steep meadows, lazily letting their calves nurse from their udders. I also saw the humans, tiny distant naked figures, their genders just discernible, busily going about their chores.

I have never stayed at that farm, nor at any other of its kind. This is another man's story, not mine. Or you might say it is the girl's story.

She wasn't his type at all. A strangely shapeless chubby body, with a pinkish complexion, hardly a waistline, and a vulva that seemed nothing more than a short and narrow groove disappearing between her thighs. Drooping breasts, with large pale areolas and flat, barely visible nipples. Short hair, of a nondescript brownish shade. A nice face, though, with round eyes and soft lips.

He could have asked for another one to do his room, a girl more to his tastes. Slim, petite, bronze-skinned, black-haired, with an accentuated mound, perky little breasts, and readily erect dark nipples. They had one at the farm, he had seen her when he arrived, working in the vegetable garden. He had seen others, too, whom he had found attractive. He didn't feel it was worth the effort, though. And besides, the girl was clean, soft and warm, smelled good, talked little, and, as he had heard that all farm girls did, she knew how to please a man with her fingers and her mouth. Or with her mouth only, when he tied her wrists behind her back, or to the bedposts, which he always did when he wanted to use her vagina.

She probably knew how to please women, too. She even offered to teach him, in case there was a woman in his life, or there might be one later, whom he wanted to please. He hadn't come to learn, though, he had come to forget.

He usually saw her in the morning, when she brought his breakfast to his room. All home-made stuff, organically grown, that was one of the farm's main attractions — there were others, too, of course. None of them particularly appealed to him, for him it was the remoteness of this place, and the surroundings, the solitude he found there, which had brought him here. He took his time eating — the bread, the butter, the ham, the sausages, the cheese, the eggs — a copious meal that had to last him through the day. She waited, standing, silent and naked, until he had finished, when he either sent her away, or used her mouth, breasts or vagina for his satisfaction, sometimes hurting her, but never badly.

After breakfast and sex he cleaned himself, got dressed, and then he left, for his long solitary mountain hikes. That summer was an endless stretch of warm and sunny days, but I think he would have gone in the cold, rain, and storm, too. His breakfast, plus whatever fruits of the wood he came by, sustained him, and springs were easily found where he could refill his water bottle. He never took part in any of the activities on the farm, not in the ones for children, of course, but also not in the other ones. He almost never returned before nightfall, soon after his arrival able to walk the paths back to the farm even in the dark, and immediately went to his cottage.

Dinner waited for him in his room — bread and meat from the farm, only the wine was brought in from a warmer province. The meals were cold, but he didn't mind. Pork, lamb, poultry, and, occasionally, that other meat. He didn't pay much attention to what he ate, he ate for nourishment, not for culinary delight.

Usually he ate alone, but on some days he called for the girl. One day his money would run out, but for now he could still afford the little extra fee. When he sought company, it was always she he asked for. He liked her silent unexciting naked presence.

When she was there, he always took off his clothes, though he did not always touch her. Sometimes he masturbated while eating, slowly, without even looking at her, not even calling her to clean him when he was done.

He never offered her any of his food — I do not know if he would have done it had she been hungry, but she was obviously fed well enough. For a reason, he thought as he looked at the curves and folds of her meaty body, his gaze finally coming to rest on the narrow slit between her thighs.

She read his mind, or maybe she just read his gaze, which wasn't that hard to read.

"Maybe I will live," she said.

Life on the farm was idyllic. Death, for a farm girl, was not, and still isn't. What they call a "traditional feast" goes on for hours, and she stays alive through most of them.

There had already been two or three feasts while he had stayed at the farm, and he had been invited to join, for tradition has it that feasts at a farm are open to all the guests. He had declined politely, but curtly. He had no intention to mingle, neither with the farmer family nor with the tourists. And besides, these were not his feasts, he had nothing to celebrate, and taking part would only have rubbed that in. On the nights of the feasts, he stayed off the farm until the screams of the girl and soon afterwards the laughter of the guests that rang over the hills had fallen silent.