by AJ Adaire
“Sure, I considered it, for about ten minutes. I’m not trained for any other job. There was no other work to be had, and I had a family to support. I saw no other option. I only know how to do one thing.”
Hoping to lighten the mood again, Peri snapped her locket closed. “That’s not true. You are an expert at something else.”
Paige’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “What?”
“This.” Peri leaned in and captured Paige’s mouth with her own. She pushed her backward onto the rock. Their hands joined above Paige’s head, Peri kissed her thoroughly before resting her head on Paige’s chest.
“I can hear your heart.” Chilled by the wet clothing, and aroused by the kiss, Paige’s nipple arched the material of her T-shirt. Playfully, Peri covered it with her lips and nipped it. “We’d better get back to breakfast. Those two will be wondering what happened to us.”
Paige quickly reversed their positions. Her hips straddled Peri’s while her hands captured the smaller woman’s. “Remember, you started this.” She lowered her mouth to Peri’s breast and nibbled through the shirt until Peri moaned and her hips pressed upward.
Paige leaned back, her smile teasing, and waited for Peri to open her eyes. “Now, we can go back. I’m not going to be the only one squirming in my seat.” She chuckled and gave Peri a quick kiss, before she stood and pulled her into an embrace.
Her face still flushed with arousal, Peri looked up at Paige. “You do realize that in a standing position, I’m at the advantage. I’m right about at breast height on you, and you’re still about a foot away from mine.” She opened her mouth and pretended to make a grab for Paige’s nipple with her mouth.
“Oh no you don’t!” Paige pulled back, causing laughter to burst from both of them. “We’re even now, at least until later. Then we’ll see who has the advantage.” She took Peri’s hand, and they headed back toward the house.
Chapter Twenty-eight
ALLIE SAT ON THE three-legged milking stool, a bucket below the teats of LC, her favorite goat. She ran her palm across the animal’s back and down her side before she placed her head against the animal’s warm side. Speaking softly to her, she wiped off the full sack and teats with a clean, damp cloth. While she prepped the goat for milking, she whispered in soothing tones to the sweet creature she loved. She’d long ago gotten over being embarrassed about speaking to the animals once she’d discovered that her voice calmed their nervousness. Not one pail of milk had been lost to a random kick since.
Allie massaged the full sac to get the goat to let the milk down. She clamped off the udder at the top with her thumb and forefinger, closed her palm and fingers around the teat, and squeezed. The first few squeezes didn’t yield much. As she worked, and LC relaxed her muscles, the milk came faster.
“Did I ever tell you how DJ and I named you?” She smiled, knowing she’d told the story hundreds of times. Since the animals never complained once about hearing the story repeated, she began the now familiar tale again. “Well, I know I have, but I know you love hearing it as much as I love telling it. Anyway, you remember that DJ and I were such novices when we arrived at the farm. DJ had told me he was going to go get a cow for us, so we’d have milk. He returned with two Nigerian dwarf goats in tow. I questioned him about why he’d gotten goats instead of cows. He’d learned that cows eat too much. We didn’t have much and couldn’t afford to buy all the food cows would need.”
She sat up and stretched her back for a few seconds. "Besides, you and I both know that goat milk is better for people because it’s easier to digest. If he’d bought a couple of cows, we’d have had way too much milk. You only produce a few quarts a day, and a cow can produce several gallons. Goats were perfect for us because we have less waste.” Allie smiled, recalling her pout. “I wanted a cow. I even had a name picked out, Elsie. You know, like the cow in that old commercial. We saw it on the funniest commercials program. ‘Trust me on this,’ DJ told me, as he gave me a hug. 'We can call her LC because she’s shorter than a cow and should have a shorter name.' If you say the letters together, they sound just like Elsie and yet not quite the same. Kind of like the goat…not quite the same as a cow. And so that’s how you got your name.”
Allie finished up with LC. She stood, gave her an affectionate pat on the back, and emptied her milk bucket into a larger one before she moved on to the next goat. Allie loved the pinging sound the milk made as it hit the side and began accumulating in the bottom of the bucket. The next goat got a different story. Sometimes she’d recite poems to them or sing them a soothing melody. It was a good thing she loved milking LC and the others. She spent about an hour a day tending her animals that were giving milk, cleaning the barn, and caring for the others. Her mind drifted as she milked.
She couldn’t explain why she felt peaceful as she thought about her husband. Maybe it was because he was finally at rest. She missed him every day and worried about her future. There was no way she could do all the work required to survive the winter. Kim and her friends showing up gave her hope.
She’d finished her milking and cleaned the barn floor. After giving the animals some feed, she turned LC, Deuce, and the others out into a pasture she hadn’t grazed them in yet this season. Before returning to her kitchen and Kim, Allie set the bucket of milk on the floor and stood in the door of the small barn. She watched Paige and Peri heading down the hill, hand in hand. So, they finally figured it out. They’re both nice. I’m happy for them. I wonder how Kim will react to that?
***
While Allie, Paige, and Peri ate breakfast, Kim worked on making butter. Allie demonstrated the motion she needed, rocking the Mason jar back and forth. “Keep that up for about fifteen minutes until you start to hear the thunk, thunk of the butter against the lid.”
Kim sighed, and Allie looked down at her food, to hide her smile. “You’re doing good, Kim.”
Peri knocked her knee against Paige’s as she stifled a chuckle.
“Go ahead and laugh, the lot of you. You’re feeding your faces, while I’m working my fingers to the bone.”
“You’re right, Kim. I’m sorry. Give it to me.” Allie held out her hand. Kim was glad to pass the jar over to her. With one hand agitating the milk at twice the speed Kim had been doing, she finished her breakfast with the other.
“Oh, I hear it,” Peri said. “Can we see?”
Everyone watched expectantly, as Allie opened the jar. With care, she poured off the buttermilk, leaving only the lump of butter behind. She went to the sink and rinsed the butter several times, until the water came away clear. Wasting no time, she dumped the lump of butter into a small crock her grandmother had given her. Using a spoon, she pressed the butter into the dish and drained the liquid a final time. “There. Nice job, Kim.” She placed the dish into the small refrigerator in the kitchen. “We usually don’t salt our butter. I’ll use the buttermilk to make some biscuits for later.”
Paige thanked Allie for breakfast. “We’ll clean up here. Later, we’d like to talk to you about your plans and ours, for the future. Would this be a good time, or do you have chores we can help with first?”
“If you’re willing, I need to clean out the chicken coop. It’s a nasty job that’ll go faster with some extra hands. I also need to do some weeding in the garden.”
“I’ll work on the garden after I hang out my wash,” Kim said, as she stood and pushed in her chair.
The chores took up most of the day. With the chicken coop finished, the women moved on to help finish weeding a large portion of the garden. As they walked back toward the house, Allie thanked them profusely. “It would have taken me all week to do that, and I was so far behind. How can I ever thank you? I’m going to make a special dinner for you tonight.”
“No, I think you need a night off. Peri and I can cook.” Paige put her hand on Allie’s shoulder and turned her toward the door. “Why don’t you show Kim that pond we found this morning? Go take a break, have a dip in the water. We’ll take care o
f everything here.”
“There’s some ground venison in the fridge I took out for dinner. I thought I’d make some meatloaf tonight. There are eggs and milk to go into it. Some stale bread is in the bread drawer. I planned on making a berry cobbler. Oh, and some buttermilk biscuits as a treat. I have some dried noodles and, on the shelf in the pantry, there are vegetables I canned. We can have them.”
Paige, with a gentle hand on Allie’s elbow, herded the smaller woman toward the living room. “We’ll manage dinner. You take a break. I’ve lived almost forty years and have managed not to starve to death. Now go.”
***
“That was incredibly sweet of you, Paige.” Peri wrapped her arms around Paige’s neck and gave her a quick kiss.
Dipping her head for a longer kiss, Paige replied. “Purely self-serving, I’m afraid. I wanted to get you alone.”
Peri laughed. “Alone? We have a meatloaf, cobbler, and biscuits to make.”
“I know. We’re alone though, aren’t we?” Paige took Peri by the hand. “Come on, let’s get this dinner cooking so we can neck.” She chuckled as she reached over and took a mixing bowl from the shelf and handed it to Peri. “You do know how to make cobbler, don’t you?”
Peri just shook her head.
The making of the meal was fun. They started with the cobbler, figuring out the recipe together. While it was baking, they prepared the meatloaf and biscuits. Peri wiped her hands, and after she removed the cobbler, she placed the meatloaf into the oven. “Done. We have about an hour before we have to do anything. Have any ideas of anything we could do?” Peri wiggled her eyebrows and circled her arms around Paige’s waist.
“I do. Come with me.”
There was a swing on the porch, and that’s where Peri and Paige settled. Peri turned sideways and Paige wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close so they were face to face. Using her long legs, Paige pushed against the ground so the swing swayed to and fro.
Peri ran her finger lightly over Paige’s arm. “I love your body. Your skin is so soft and smooth, yet beneath the softness is your strength.”
“Maria always said I was too stringy. I think she loved me. We got along well. The physical part of our relationship was, um…complicated.” Paige grew quiet. Seconds passed before she asked, “Does it bother you if I speak of her?”
“Not at all. We both know we had lives and lovers before. I want to know everything about you, the good and the bad. I had the impression you were a happy couple.” Peri traced Paige’s lips with her finger. She smiled when Paige shivered. “And how could she not be attracted to you?”
Paige shrugged. “As a family we were happy. We both loved Hildie, and Maria was a wonderful mother. I think Maria had a problem being a lesbian. She fell in love with me, and we started a relationship, though she insisted on keeping it a secret. She never told anyone about us, including her parents. I suspect they knew the real story, although it was never discussed openly.” Paige gave a wry chuckle. “She told her parents I rented a room from her. Can you believe that?”
“Her denial that she loved you must have been difficult to accept.”
“She had a way of massaging that denial. She always told me that she wasn’t a lesbian. She was only attracted to me, not to other women, so there was no reason to tell her parents that she was gay.” Paige’s jaw tightened. “The most hurtful thing was that she’d only show me affection in the privacy of our bedroom. That was, um, not always satisfying for me. She loved for me to make love to her.” Paige sighed and looked away. “She wouldn’t touch me though. Somehow, in her mind, if she touched me it made her more of a lesbian. After I made love to her, she would always turn away. I had to, well, you know.”
“Why did you remain in the relationship?”
Paige lifted one shoulder, tipping her head toward it. “I have no reason other than I loved her. The fact that she didn’t love me, the way I wished she would, didn’t change that.” Her face softened, “And there was Hildie. She was my heart.”
“I promise you, Paige, that when we make love, whenever that is, you’ll feel that every inch of you has been worshiped.” Peri sealed her promise with a kiss.
***
Allie finished milking the goats for the second time that day, before the group gathered for the evening meal. Dinner received rave reviews. As they ate the women began their discussion about the future. Allie confessed, “I’m so relieved that all of you are here, and I’m so grateful to have your help. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t shown up. I doubt I could have survived the winter. The animals, the barn, the gardening…it’s all too hard for one person. Sometimes, DJ and I struggled. The winters are brutal. At the same time, there has been such satisfaction from being able to survive here on our own.”
“Paige made a commitment to me today, to not leave until the end of the summer. So we’ll stay here and help with the chores, do whatever is necessary to prepare for the winter, if you’ll have us.” Peri reached for Paige’s hand.
Kim’s eyes shifted to the linked hands. She stood up and placed her plate in the sink. “I’m going to turn in. I think I had too much sun today. See you in the morning.” She turned and strode from the room, leaving the others staring at her back until she turned the corner.
“What’s with her? Is she okay?” Paige looked to Allie.
“She will be. Kim is grasping. She wants to feel secure again. I can’t imagine how she’s missed your developing relationship. From her reaction, I think it’s obvious she has. Give her some time and she’ll come around. I’ll talk to her.”
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow, too.” Peri stood and began to gather the dishes. Paige washed, Peri dried, and Allie put things where they belonged.
The three women retired to the porch, where they enjoyed the waning light of the day. “I think I’ll leave the two of you and go keep Kim company. Peri, can you come with me for a minute, please? I have something for you.”
“Shall we turn in, too, Paige?”
Paige answered with a smile. “I’ll meet you in the bedroom. Don’t be too long.”
Peri entered the room and tossed two large, white T-shirts on the bed. “I got these from Allie. They used to belong to her husband. She said she thought we could use them for sleeping. I thanked her, but I don’t think we’ll need them, do you?”
“They’ll be good for going to and from the bathroom.” They took turns taking a shower.
Paige, finished in the bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and quickly slid into bed to wait for Peri to take her turn and return.
Peri came into the bedroom, made eye contact with Paige, and didn’t look away. She slowly pulled off her shirt, folded it, and placed it on the pile at the bottom of the bed.
Paige licked her lips. “You’re beautiful.”
Peri turned off the light and slid into the bed next to Paige, but remained on her side. She reached for Paige’s hand.
“Is everything okay?”
Peri blew out a shaky breath. “Yes, it’s just that I’m feeling a little nervous.”
“How about we cuddle and talk for a little while? If you’re not ready, we don’t have to have sex. I’d just like to be close to you.”
Peri slid over and put her head on Paige’s shoulder. Paige pulled her closer and wrapped her arm around Peri. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure. Although I’d love to make love to you, it doesn’t have to be tonight. We have all the time in the world.”
Peri turned toward Paige, wrapped her arm around her middle, and slid her leg on top of Paige’s. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I guess I’m feeling nervous. I didn’t feel at all uneasy this morning.”
“I’m serious. If you’re not ready, I’d be happy to cuddle with you.” Paige adjusted her position until they fit perfectly. “If nothing more than this happens, I’ll be happy.” She ran her hand down Peri’s back and over the soft skin on the hip, leaving a trail of goose bumps along Peri’s side.
; “Really? Cuddling would be enough?” Peri’s fingers skimmed up Paige’s side on her way to Paige’s breast. She traced a circle around the already erect nipple and smiled at Paige’s gasp as she rubbed her palm over it. “Your skin is so soft. I could feel every muscle underneath as I slid up your side.”
Paige’s thoughts flashed to Maria’s reticence to make love to her. Concerned, her heart picked up its tempo. “Do you think I’m too muscular?”
“Oh God no! I love your body.” Peri rolled over and settled her hips between Paige’s legs. “I think you’re very desirable. I want to show you how much.”
“First, I’m showing you how much you make me desire you.” Paige flipped Peri onto her back and began to kiss her. Paige was a skilled lover. The kisses, gentle at first, gradually built their passion. Paige kissed Peri’s forehead. She held Peri’s head between her strong hands and brushed her lips across Peri’s brow, before she kissed each eyelid. With her soft lips, she nibbled on Peri’s mouth, before she traced the outline with her tongue. Peri’s moan encouraged Paige to kiss her deeply. Their tongues danced, and Peri started to squirm beneath the larger woman. Paige whispered into Peri’s ear, “I adore touching you. Your skin is so soft and warm, and tastes so sweet.” Her hand found Peri’s breast. Supporting herself on her elbows, she tongued the already aroused nipple and blew a warm breath across it.
Peri’s need grew. Her hand moved behind Paige’s head and she pulled Paige down. “Use your mouth on my breast. Oh, please.”
Paige slid downward so she could avail herself of Peri’s breasts. She squeezed them together and rubbed her cheeks in turn against the erect nipples resulting in a mutual moan.
Paige took her time worshiping Peri’s breasts, before she slowly kissed her way down Peri’s stomach. She came to the soft hair between Peri’s legs and teased it with her nose. “Umm…so, so soft. I want to taste you.”
Peri urged Paige downward, and rose to meet her. “Please. I need you,” she gasped.