A Bloody Good Man

When you live with your parents in a small country town, it's impossible to keep secrets. Mum and Dad had never been thrilled that it was me, not Paul, that came back home, but we'd reached some sort of tolerant, mutual understanding by the time Brett moved to town and subsequently asked me out.

I swear that no sooner had he asked me to dinner than everybody knew about it. Mum and Dad didn't welcome the news. They thought Brett was too old, with not enough money and not enough character to compensate. Perhaps they were also a bit scared about what me being in a relationship might do their lives. They weren't by any stretch incapable of getting themselves around or participating in running the farm or caring for themselves, but when you added the farm plus the house plus general paperwork together, it was too much. They needed me, and they were concerned Brett might impact on my availability.

I never had any intentions of letting them down. I'd told them I was going to help them, and on the same night that Brett told me he couldn't have children, I told him about my own circumstances, and ensured he understood that I'd be living with Mum and Dad until they died.

Brett understood. He just didn't want to live in the same house as my parents, which is why we had a house moved to my farm. We were just a few kilometres from Mum and Dad, giving Brett and I the privacy we wanted while ensuring we were close enough to care for my parents when and if that day arrived. I thought it was a good compromise.

On the night my parents died, they went out to dinner at a local restaurant. They drank a lot. Too much. They should have called me and asked me to pick them up, as I'd done in the past, but they didn't. My father decided to drove home, and lost control of the car, hit a tree, and killed himself instantly. Mum died on the way to hospital.

I'm not sure why Monica thought to blame me for their death. Perhaps she was just angry. But it cut deep, and I was shaking with rage for the rest of the evening.

~~~~~~~

Dutchie started work on Monday morning. I was nervous around him. I can put on a smile and act chirpy around people with whom my interactions will be brief or short term, but whenever anything is long term or serious, I get anxious. What will they think of me? Will they be arseholes? And in Dutchie's case, my uncertainties and self doubt were all the more prominent because my husband was expecting him to sleep with me.

Furthermore, I now knew enough about farming to know what I didn't know, and what I didn't know was quite expansive. Perhaps, I told myself, this would be a good thing. Perhaps Dutchie would be able to teach me and Gunther a few things. On this note, I told him about the dodgy tractor and asked his opinion.

'I don't know much about mechanical stuff,' he admitted. 'Is that going to be a problem?'

'No, I was just being hopeful.'

Dutchie's first few days passed without incident. He worked sufficiently well, and he showed up every day, and if you've ever employed anyone, you know what a challenge it can be to find someone who can accomplish these feats.

Gunther gave him a wide berth. The two men didn't get on very well. Gunther was one of those men who gave the impression of a certain laid back, lackadaisical attitude, and you often didn't notice how much he'd done until you stopped and tallied it all up. He was also a good ten years' younger than Dutchie, and far less arrogant. Dutchie was a womaniser. Gunther was the town's harmless little pothead, the odd duck in a family of religious evangelicals. They had absolutely nothing in common save for the fact that both worked for me. Moreover, Dutchie was already showing an alarming desire to try and patronise and bully his younger colleague.

Brett, when he came home on Saturday night, asked me how Dutchie had settled in.

'Fine,' I replied, not wishing to go into details. I was tired and sore.

'Has he... you...?'

'Brett, I appreciate you think these things should happen quickly, but I'd like him to be able to fill out his superannuation forms before I start asking him for his baby batter.'

Brett flinched.

I sighed heavily. 'I really think we should just go to Brisbane, to a fertility clinic, and get a sperm donor.'

Brett nodded. 'If that's what you'd prefer.'

But he looked defeated, and I knew that wasn't what he wanted. His feelings, irrational though they seemed to be, were firmly held, and I knew that if he had to tell a team of nurses and doctors he was unable to father a child, he'd be devastated. He didn't want a test tube baby or donor sperm. He wanted a kid, and he wanted to be able to pretend to all and sundry he had fathered it.

I sighed again. 'But it's not what you prefer.'

'No. I hate the idea of sifting through donor profiles. I hate other people knowing, even if that someone else is just a surgery full of doctors and nurses. I feel like less of a man already. I'd rather you just slip away for a random fuck or two with a backpacker or labourer until he's done what he needs to, and I can have you back. Nobody needs to know. Nobody will be the wiser. As long as he's white, it doesn't matter who he is.'

I went and hugged him, laid my head against his chest. I felt bad for him, even though if you break it down to nuts and bolts, he was the one who should have been feeling guilty. 'I'm sure that once I suss out how to seduce someone, it'll get easier from there. Cheating is just a hard concept because I'm mentally geared up to be faithful.'

'It's not cheating. It's a hall pass to fuck something young and good-looking, someone with a big dick and a full head of hair.'

It was that simple to Brett, that easy. Just fuck someone and have a baby.

'Hailey,' Brett said, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me back so he could make eye contact. 'Most men want to fuck most women. Young, horny, single blokes will do just about anything to get their ends wet. The only thing holding them back is opportunity. You need to stop worrying about how to seduce them and instead let them know it's okay to seduce you.'

'I don't know how!'

'Be slightly inappropriate. Give them a good view of your legs and tits. Wear your short work shorts and find a reason to bend over.'

'They'll need therapy if they see that.'

'No, but they'll need therapy if they realise sex with you was on offer and they were too stupid to realise it.'

He spoke the way Gunther did. Both seemed to assume that men were easy, and would fuck anything that moved if given half a chance.

'When you were young, did you want to have sex with the older women you worked with?' I asked.

'Hell yes. My only regret is that none of them wanted to have sex with me.'

'So you think I just need to give them a hint?'

My husband nodded. 'Maybe a few, but once they get the hint, they'll come running.'

'And what sort of hints do you have in mind? Do you think I should amble up to them when I've convinced them to look at the tractor and ask if they need me to hand them a spanner?'

'Try sitting on the tractor and leaning down to hand it to them, so they can see your cleavage.'

'I'd need to wear a singlet top.'

'Yeah, but don't wear a sports bra, wear one of your nice ones.'

'They're not very comfy, and my boobs half fall out every time I lean over.'

'Exactly,' he said. 'Your man will get to see an eyeful of tit, and he'll also see you're wearing something sexy. His mind will start racing.'

'And then, presumably, I just need to ask about cleaning booms out? Check if things are spurting correctly?'

'That'd definitely make him realise.'

'And if it doesn't, I should ask him if any nuts or shafts need attention?'

Brett laughed. 'If he doesn't get it by then, God help him.'

'If he doesn't get it by then, I'll have to ask him to grease some nipples.'

My husband thought it was a great idea. I, on the other hand, was conjuring up mental images about wearing lacy underwear and tight singlet tops with short shorts around the farm, and leaning over a tractor while some poor cunt tried to fix it's many woes. I could just imagine the sexual harassment complaints.

Nonetheless, after spending a lovely evening and day with my husband, I started the following week determined to let Dutchie know I was there for the taking. I was feeling confident. Brett had a way of making me feel attractive and special, and his unshakeable confidence in me was empowering.

Dutchie was going to get laid.

Gunther was the first to arrive on Monday morning. He parked his battered little Barina out the front of the farm, packed a billy and had a smoke before starting the his little hatchback and driving in the front gate.

'How was your weekend?' I asked.

'All too short,' he replied. 'When I work five days with you, I really only get one day off a week because of God Day.'

'God Day?'

'Church. Sunday.'

'Are you back living at home?'

'No, Jed and I are still sharing that shithole near the pub, but Mum and Dad come by to pick me up and take me with them. I think they sussed out that I wasn't interested in hearing about hell and gays on a Sunday morning and was just making excuses when I said I was sick.'

'Surely you can say 'no'?'

'Not without creating World War Three.' He turned around as a car turned in the driveway. 'Dutchie's here.'

'Looks like it,' I agreed.

Gunther gave me a careful, appraising look. 'You be careful around him, okay? People say things about him.'

'I... Brett thought he sounded like a good worker.'

'Whoever told him he was a good worker didn't respect your husband.' Gunther's blue eyes were filled with emotion I couldn't place. 'Maybe because Brett's not from around here. Just be careful. He's slimy.'

'Sure,' I agreed. 'Will do.'

I assumed Gunther meant to say 'he's a womaniser' which was ironically exactly what I wanted Dutchie to be. I wanted to get the sex over and done with. I wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to have a baby. Ever since that day in the pub, where Brett and I saw the newborn, the old longings to be a mother had resurfaced. It didn't matter if the farmhand was a creep. The only thing that mattered was that he would be willing to have sex with me. I was determined. I could do this.

Just after lunch I had to go to town to do a few jobs. Normally I just got in my ute and went. Not that day. Instead, I went inside, showered and blow dried my hair. I pulled on a push-up bra, matching undies, a singlet top and what I'd previously described as the world's worst pair of work shorts; they'd shrunk dramatically and were now ridiculously short in the leg.

To maintain some aura of respectability, I pulled on my work boots but I powdered, lipsticked and mascara-ed in what I hoped was a subtle fashion. It wasn't an outfit that was overtly sexy, but it was certainly more revealing and 'made up' than what I usually wore on a work day.

I was about to get in the car when Gunther approached me on the farm bike. He was in jeans that were caked with dust and an old promotional beer shirt, with an old Motocross helmet of uncertain origin with the visor pushed up on his face.

'Hailey,' he called out. 'Do you know where the spanner set is?'

'Shit, yeah, it's in the tray of my ute,' I replied. 'Sorry. I took it around to Mum and Dad's house last week and forgot to put it back in the shed. Wait a minute.'

I went around and unclipped tonneau cover. The spanner set had managed to slide into the exact middle of tray so instead of lowering the back, I stood on the back step and tried to reach inside to retrieve it. Glamourous? Nope. But I was in a hurry. I needed to go into town, do my jobs, then come back and try to seduce Dutchie.

'Move over, Shortie,' Gunther teased, even though at five foot eight I was anything but 'short'. He was six two, though, and when he hopped up onto the step alongside me, he easily reached the set. 'There we go.'

The back step wasn't wide and our bodies were touching. It was strange to be on such a large property and yet be in physical contact with one of the other two people currently on it. Perhaps Gunther found it odd, too, because he quickly hopped down, before holding out his hand for me to hold, so I could neatly step down without any risk of losing my balance. It was unnecessary and yet borne out of good manners. He was a polite kid.

'Thanks,' I said.

Gunther didn't speak. His gaze traversed my chest, my legs, and then back to my chest, and I realised that my outfit was actually revealing enough to catch a twenty-two year old's attention. That was positive. Very positive.

Gunther realised he'd been sprung and planted a smile on his face. 'I'll be off,' he said. 'Work to do.'

'Yeah, sure,' I agreed. 'Thanks.'

On the back of the trail bike was an old milk crate held in place with a jockey strap. Gunther wedged the spanner set in the plastic crate, then got on the bike and headed off.

~~~~~~~~~~

After I got back to the farm, I figured I'd approach Dutchie and ask how things were going.

It was a good plan, but it didn't work out. Things were not actually going 'at all' for Dutchie, because instead of helping Gunther on a job, he was hiding out in a shed, doing something on his phone and smoking a cigarette.

I wasn't sure how to react. I understand the wages were shit, the work mind-numbingly boring and the lack of human interaction mentally fucked with you at times. I got that, really. And we'd hit one of those quiet weeks, where not much was happening, so I didn't need him to be doing x or y or z, but he could have at least pretended to look busy. I do stocktakes when I'm bored. Gunther likes to pull the gurney out and scrub everything to an inch of it's life. We both know we're just bullshitting, wasting time instead of working, but the point is we at least pretend we're doing something useful.

I asked myself what Brett would have done if he'd caught an employee slacking off. He probably would have walked in, clapped his hands and made some comment about something needing to be done, and the break being over. It would have been delivered with the kind of facial expression and tone that made it clear that if you're going to bludge, at least be clever about it.

I wasn't confident enough to do that, so I just asked Dutchie where he was up to and when he said he'd just finished a task and had taken five minutes to cool down, I ignored the three-quarters drunk cup of coffee beside him and nodded.

I hoped Tuesday would be better. So far my attempts at seduction had been an abysmal failure.

~~~~~~~~~~

I got up the next morning and found another pair of shorts and a tight tee, and applied a light coating of make-up, but it was again for nought. Dutchie called in sick.

That evening I just felt defeated, fed up, tired and sick of everything. I wanted my husband back home. I wanted a baby. I wanted... oh, everything and nothing, all at once. I wanted, if not a fairy tale, an easier time of things.

By Wednesday morning I was cranky. I wore long pants, which I prefer, although I teemed it with a singlet and hot pink sports bra that peeked out a bit, and I put on a bit of make-up - not much, but it was on. Then I went to see who might possibly show up to work for the day.

To my surprise, both Gunther and Dutchie had already arrived, with the former suggesting to the latter that he might want to go to my parent's old farm to do some spraying. That was the good thing about Gunther, he thought about things. He might need a few cones to get him through the day, but he had a level of aptitude and forward planning not ordinarily seen in someone so young.

'I'll take you over to Mum and Dad's place and show you around,' I offered Dutchie. He'd been to Mum and Dad's farm the week before, but I hadn't really given him a tour or shown him where anything was. Rather than have him stumble around helplessly - and also, because I didn't want him taking any more impromptu, unauthorised breaks - I wanted to go with him.

He nodded. 'Thanks.'

Dutchie and I went to my ute and hopped in. My parents' farm was just down the road from mine, but 'down the road' means different things to different people, and when I said it, I meant 'five kilometres down the road'. It was nothing where we lived, no distance at all, but in Sydney it could mean a few million dollars price difference.

I took a good look at my employee. He was five foot nine or so, stocky, with green eyes and light brown hair that formed a widow's peak. If I was to assess him in the brutally honest what the men assess women, I'd say he probably had about five good years' in him before he'd no longer be attractive to women.

Perhaps I was being unfair. Perhaps I was letting my assessment of his personality interfere. On a personal level, I wasn't really that fond of Dutchie. He had an aura of superiority to him, and the way he treated Gunther annoyed me. Gunther had never been anything but polite and helpful to him. But, well, maybe this was the personality that went with a womaniser. Good, decent, men don't seek out other men's wives, do they? It might happen once, by accident, but not on purpose, and never repeatedly.

If only Brett and I didn't need him. If only we didn't need sperm.

'Why does Gunther call your parent's old farm the 'surprise cancer' farm?' Dutchie asked.

'Oh,' I laughed under my breath. 'It's just because I do organic farming and my parents obviously didn't. Organic chemicals are just as likely to be carcinogenic as synthetics, they're just natural, not synthetic. Gunther and I joke that with organic chemicals they've generally been around long enough for us to know what sort of cancers they can cause, whereas with synthetics, it's just a wild guess. It's just a joke, though. I suppose it's just a defence mechanism for when some nutcase in town starts ranting and raving about us being hippy greenies who only care about city slickers.'

Dutchie didn't seem to understand the joke, or the reasons. 'Then why do you even have an organic farm?'

'There's a market for our produce.'

He pulled a face and stared out the window. 'And how long's Gunther been working for you?'

'Three years.'

'If you don't mind me saying, he seems to be pretty keen on you. I'm not making trouble, you understand, just saying what I've noticed.'

And I'd noticed Dutchie was remarkably fit and well for someone who'd apparently been sick the day before, but I didn't comment on that. Instead, I rather awkwardly pointed out that Gunther and I were just sort-of-friends, with the type of weird relationship that occurs when you spend a good thirty or so hours each week in someone else's company.

That was when it occurred to me that I needed to start flirting with Dutchie. What I said next sounded incredibly stupid to my own ears, but I had to say something.

'He's also a bit too young,' I added, as flirtatiously as I could.

Dutchie, obviously the experienced seducer, took a chance. 'And how old do you like them? As old as your old man?'

I drove up to the gate at the front of my parent's property. 'Oh come on, if they're just for fun, I want something a bit younger than my husband. Something around thirty always works.'

'I'll consider myself a contender then? Seeing as I'm thirty-two?'

'You're always in with a chance,' I agreed, wondering where the words were coming from. 'You want to open the gate for me?'

The smug expression on his face made me want to smack his head in. If you want to know how much I loved my husband, I'll put it to you like this; I was prepared to have sex with this fucking weasel we'd hired, to save him the hell of having to admit to strangers he was infertile. God, Brett, I thought to myself, you had better be a bloody good father. And Dutchie, you had want to hope you're fertile.