“Fallon, almost time to start the meal,” someone called across the courtyard.
“Coming.”
She turned to the girls. “Guess what? Miss Trouble is going to be a mama and Councilman Verdad said we could have one of her kittens. Would you like that?”
The little Synths eyes glowed with inhuman light, but she knew it meant they felt strong emotion. “Come. We will go eat some delicious food. And in a few weeks we will come look at the kittens and pick one out.”
The girls skipped and wiggled, holding her hands, back to the barn. Polly lost track of Fallon, who went to a small dais to announce the meal. She found a table, with the friendly settler, Mary.
Fallon spoke to the crowd. “Thank you all for coming to our third annual Two Moon Harvest Dinner. This year we have many more of our community participating. Welcome to the Verdad Steading.”
He was so handsome standing there. A good man, too. Kind to a neighbor he didn’t know at all…Polly felt a rush of heat and had to blink away a sudden tear.
It had been an emotional month, she told herself. Hoggart’s drunken rampage, his death, harvest. Sudden, unexpected sex with a Horse Shimmer.
She helped the girl’s through the buffet line.
“This food is so good.”
“I brought the nut and greens salad,” Mary said. “This is my husband, Garrence. Did you come last year?”
“I brought persicheri pies. No, we were late getting the harvest in last year and missed it. My husband passed away this summer, but the Verdad boys helped me get the grain in.”
“I am so sorry for your loss. It must be hard … and you are running the Steading alone?”
“Yes. I think we will be all right. I will have to hire help, though. I think I can manage fall planting by myself, as long as my equipment works correctly.”
Mary nodded. “Councilman Verdad can help you find workers.”
“Yes. He and his family have been very kind.”
The dancing started after the meal was cleared up. Lively fiddle music played by a trio filled the barn with happy music. Polly was so glad to see that everyone got up and danced. It was nothing like the saloon dances she was employed at as a girl, with drunken men groping her throughout the dance floor, paying her per dance, while she tried to get them to buy another drink or appetizers to enhance her salary. Here, grandmothers danced with children, teens danced in groups, romantic young couples danced with only each other. Evon and Charl came by with a group of friends and twirled Ivy and Fern round for a song.
Later she took a break, standing on the edge of the dance floor. Her Synths were doing one of their mirror dances, much to the delight of some of the guests.
“Did you teach them to dance?”
She was startled by Fallon’s voice from right behind her.
“No. It seems to be something they were programmed with perhaps. It is their favorite way to play, with their music box, dancing under my big tree.” She placed her glass on the nearest table. “I was going to join them.”
Fallon joined her, an arm about her waist, their other hands clasped. She fell into the two-step easily and they join the Synths. Fallon picked the girls up and twirled them, making them chuckle silently, their eyes glowing. Then he put them down and danced her back toward the center of the group.
“The night will be beautiful with two moons. I think I will take a run tonight.” His hand at her waist gave a sudden firm squeeze, a secret touch not noticed by the throng around them.
Polly drew in a deep breath, a sudden rush of passion making her knees feel funny. “I thought I would watch the sky for a while from the loft. So gorgeous.”
His hand continued the rhythmic squeezing of her waist as he danced her back to the girls and let go of her, bowing a thank you for the dance with a flourish. But as he stood their eyes caught and she knew what he meant to do tonight, what he wanted. She wanted it too.
Joy rushed through her, flushing away her earlier sadness at the idea they would just be neighbors. She grabbed her girls by the hand and the three of them made a small dancing circle. While they twirled she laughed thinking… Secret. We can have that. No one else ever comes out by my place; we’re off the main road and on the corridor.
~**~
When Polly got back to her Steading she helped the girls into their nightgowns and popped them in bed, where they were asleep as soon they were settled.
She rushed to the bath and changed into her own summer night gown. The soft fabric floated to her calves. She let her hair down to brush the thick waves. With her hair down she though she looked more Synth, since the braids and buns made her hair look darker, not the preferred honey of most Synths. With her hair down the honey color was bright and obvious.
She decided not to worry about hiding her legs. It would be dark.
They would make love in here. Not love…have sex. This was an affair, and could never be more than that…
She dropped the thin drapes in her bedroom making it more private, the filtered moonlight giving the bed a cozy softness.
She went back up to the loft and sat in the swivel rocker enjoying beauty of the night.
The dark horse appeared on the crest of the hill where Hoggart was buried, then moved down the valley in the bright moonlight. She went outside as he entered her driveway. He trotted up to her doorstep, shimmered to man, beautifully naked and aroused. Polly drew in a deep breath, then held out her hand. He entered her home without speaking and she drew him to her bedroom.
Polly knelt on her bed and pulled off her gown. Her eyes in the moonlight glowed, just a little…
She’s Synth, part Synth… I wonder if she even knows?
It didn’t matter to him. She was so beautiful in the moonlight, sleek, with the rosy tipped nipples, waves of dark gold hair to her hips. Fallon couldn’t take his eyes off her. No one would know about her ancestry, about them, it was their precious secret. He reached out, cupped her breasts, feeling their weight and softness in his palms. She slid back onto the pillows and he followed her, aching to be with her, to be inside her.
Polly welcomed him clasping arms and legs around him, pulling him tight. They kissed deep and wild and without thinking or ability to restrain himself he was in her, deep within her wet heat. Lost in her.
Afterwards they rested, admiring her in the moonlight. “If I could offer you more than an affair, I would, Polly.”
She rose up over him and pressed a kiss on his lips. “I have learned to take what joy a moment brings so I am not discontent with our arrangement. The world around us is what it is. Let us make the best of it…No regrets.”
“We can meet here frequently. My aunts stay in the fenced area, as do the youth, for safety’s sake. I am the only one at the Steading who travels the grasslands.”
Fallon thought of that as she pressed slow kisses over his face. This was the world they lived in, for good or bad…But they had this. They were so lucky to have a way to meet, privately.
He pulled her down for a deep kiss. “You are right, Polly. Let us make the best of what we have.”
“What we have is wonderful,” Polly whispered.
Fallon agreed.
The End
Harvest Moons Page 3