Back to the Land

With a cheery round of goodbyes and reminders not to stay out late, they were off. Julia sat beside him all the way to the prom, not moving to the door as she normally did around the school. Bill was still distracted by the image of Julia's lush, full curves in that dress and didn't even notice. The pressure in his tuxedo pants was still increasing. He barely remembered the camera equipment and also had to discreetly adjust his own equipment when Julia's back was turned.

As soon as they got in the door, the organizing committee members were telling them to take this shot, that shot and the other shot. They never even had a chance to dance. Bill was quite happy with that because he was completely overwhelmed by the whole event and couldn't stop staring at Julia in her dress. They were very busy taking pictures and the evening slid by quickly. As the students slipped quietly out into the parking lot to head for the various post-prom inevitables, Bill and Julia made their way back to the old truck and headed for Julia's place.

The roads were deserted. Bill didn't want the night to end so soon. He pulled into a narrow lane along a neighbor's bush lot. The bush had started as a grove of trees around a farmhouse, but a scorched stone chimney stood as a lonely sentinel to long-forgotten dreams. Bill drove up the cart tracks and parked near the chimney. Neither one spoke. In the awkward confines of the cab, Bill and Julia hugged and kissed until the windows steamed over. Carefully avoiding crushing her corsage, Bill held Julia in his arms wishing the night could go on forever. The warm, smooth bare skin of her shoulders, the simple fragrance of her shampoo, the curve of her neck exposed with her hair done up were an aphrodisiac to Bill. He was lost in the pleasure of her.

Julia was enjoying the way Bill's tuxedo defined his broad farm-boy shoulders and the way the cummerbund defined the broad chest above his narrow waist and firm butt. She thought that his pants were unusually tight in front but the dim light combined with her lack of experience must have been playing tricks on her.

Eventually, the chill night air cooled their passion. Nervously, Bill started the truck and drove the rest of the way to Julia's where her mother came out to greet them. A quick hug goodbye and a still flustered Bill was on his way home. As he stripped out of his tux, the images of Julia in her dress replayed themselves across his mind; he had to make a detour to relieve the pressure in his pants.

Remembering the locket nestled gently in the soft valley between her breasts and the soft, smooth warm skin of her shoulders had him weak in the knees already. As his tuxedo pants and boxers slid down, his fist encircled his throbbing cock. It only took four strokes and he was cumming hard, his breathing ragged and his vision clouded. He was so wrapped up in the feeling, his orgasm rolled over and over him. Never had he cum so hard before. His knees were weak from the exertion. He gasped for air as he slid to the floor with the last couple of throbs of his cock leaking cum on the floor as he fell back whispering, "Julia."

The last gasp of the school year passed uneventfully except for the triumphant publication of the yearbook with all of their photos in it. At graduation, everyone brought their yearbooks and began the bittersweet, tearful process of getting signatures and saying goodbyes. Bill and Julia had each come with their proud parents and left separately. Being farm kids, their summer jobs had already started after the last risk of frost and they were busy from sunup to sundown.

They hardly saw each other except for a few Saturday nights and they seemed to have comfortably slid back to being best friends without the common bond of the yearbook and closeness of riding to school together. Before they knew it, Bill was packing to move east as a freshman business major. They got together one final Saturday night with Bill due to leave the next day at the crack of dawn.

Bill picked up Julia in the truck and they wound up back at the bush lot and had a pleasant but more bittersweet and subdued session that mostly involved clinging to each other and brooding over the change in their lives. Bill dropped Julia at home and moped his way to bed. In the morning, his Dad surprised him with the pink slip to the old truck and Bill took some comfort in having the memories that went with the truck as he drove east.

Chapter 4 – The Business student to Present

Bill's transformation into a business student was rapid and complete. At the end of the first year, he went searching for summer work experience to broaden his scope. He was working in the big city and found an apartment close enough to walk so he made one trip home to drop off the old truck. It didn't fit with his developing city boy image but he couldn't bear to part with it. While he was home, he visited briefly with his folks but the letters that he and Julia had been exchanging had dwindled by January and he felt really awkward about visiting her. He left without even picking up the phone and calling her.

The years flew by for Bill as the courses became more challenging and his summer work experience postings were more and more demanding but paid better and better. Soon came the proud day of another graduation and his parents made the trek east to watch him throw his cap in the air over the football field along with thousands of other students.

As soon as the party was over, he was a grad student; the MBA program flew by also. Another graduation and off to the position he had picked from the four very nice offers he had received. Gotta love Ivy League image for recruiting, Bill thought to himself. Five years of schooling, he was pulling in six figures and he was just turning twenty three. Life was good.

Jerking back to the present, Bill realized these idle musings had served him well. The miles had melted behind his Euro status symbol sedan and soon he was rolling into his parents' lane wondering if these roads had always been this bumpy. His parents were very glad to see him as he carried his few personal items in. After a round of hugs and kisses, they noticed the faraway look in his eye and wondered where he was inside his head.

The first few weeks moved quickly. Bill had sold the condo furnished and he had the few remaining items shipped. That stuff all arrived and was moved into his old bedroom in the farmhouse. His huge plasma TV and top of the line surround sound audio system were rather out of place in the old house; a new satellite dish and some creative decorating and he was in business. He readily slipped into his old ways around the house and happily enjoyed his mother's cooking and having her look after his laundry and stuff.

Bill and his father made many trips to town to the lawyer's office to complete the formal transaction of phasing Bill into the ownership of the farm and phasing his parents out as wealthy former landowners. The lawyer was well versed in farm succession planning and covered all the bases. Bill's parents would take a reverse mortgage held by Bill that would gradually buy out their equity in the farm property providing them with a steady and significant income while Bill employed his father as a "consultant" to the new owner.

As part of the ownership transition, Bill and his father toured the place. The dairy cows were gone; milking help just wasn't easy to find and his Dad had converted to cash cropper over a couple of years. The barn was still serviceable and the paddock used for the cows held a couple of steers fattening up for the freezer.

The biggest surprise was in the drive shed. Bill was amazed to find his Dad had carefully stored the old pickup waiting for the day Bill "came to his senses" and moved back home. The two of them worked for several days getting the old truck running again, changing the oil and updating the license, insurance and inspection. The old girl needed some dedicated TLC but the two men were very patient with her and after some coaxing had her back on the road and running well. New rubber, brakes, belts, hoses and assorted odds and ends plus some updates to the suspension, radio and creature comforts and Bill had a reliable vehicle that was much better suited to farm life than his autobahn toy.

So much better in fact, that Bill drove the now useless Euro sedan to town and traded it as a down payment on a new combine that they needed for the bumper soybean crop. Now that he wasn't white knuckling the car over the bumpy roads, Bill had more time to gaze out the window at the passing countryside. Other than his ride home, he hadn't thought about Julia at all since he got back. He'd been too busy.

On that fateful day, maybe it was something about the old truck; maybe he slipped into autopilot when he was looking out through that big windshield. However it happened, he found himself on a route that took him past her parents'. No one was outside but the place looked pretty much the same. The same paint on the house and barn, same big field of corn surrounded the house but there was a sad sort of tired shabbiness to it all. Then he noticed the name on the mailbox was "Watson" which was a fairly common name around there but definitely not "Beck" which was Julia's family name. Where had they gone? Where had she gone? Bill felt some stirrings of curiosity but also the nagging shadow of sadness.

Later, at supper, Bill asked the question that had been nagging him since he drove by the Beck farm. "What happened to Julia and her parents? The name on the mailbox is Watson but the place looks the same, only run down."

Chapter 5 – Catching Up With Julia's Story

His mother and father exchanged a quick look which vaguely troubled Bill; his mother quietly began a narrative.

"After you left and stayed east during the summers, Julia continued her organic vegetable business while Ralph continued to cash crop. We had a couple of dry years in a row and the cash crop business wasn't too good. On top of that, word around town suggested that old Ralph made some poor decisions on commodity futures contracts. Whatever the cause, Ralph and Louise went through some hard times."

"Julia's vegetable business flourished and she helped carry the family through the rough spots. Apparently that still wasn't enough to keep things afloat and they were faced with bank foreclosure to take control of their assets to pay off their seed, fuel and fertilizer debts. You remember Jason Watson from high school?"

Bill mumbled an "uh huh" and his mother continued.

"Well, he became the loans manager at the bank. Apparently, he somehow cooked up a deal that he and Julia got married and the Beck's loan somehow disappeared. At least that is how it was told round town. Jason and Julia moved in to one part of the farmhouse and everything seemed fine. Then one day, it was clear that Jason had somehow cooked the deal so he could gain ownership of the farm through some legal mumbo jumbo and a loophole in the loan agreement. Louise and Ralph were devastated and eventually moved to a mobile home park in the Florida panhandle."

"Eventually Ralph had a fatal heart attack and Louise just gradually faded until she joined Ralph. Julia stayed with Jason and continued to run her organic vegetable business on a hundred of the 2,000 acres that Ralph had owned. Jason didn't have the first clue about cash cropping and just rented the land to a local guy who bled the soil of nutrients to make a quick buck. Jason and Julia already had two kids, an older boy Jason Jr. and a cute little girl Louise, by the time Julia realized that Jason was not being faithful to their wedding vows."

"One thing about this small town; one misstep and everyone knows what you're up to. Well, old Jason was apparently approving loans for young couples on the basis of how well the wife did in the local motel. One couple wouldn't stand for his tactics and blew the whistle on him to his boss. After some investigation, the whole ugly scheme came to light and the bank was forced to act. A couple of the husbands worked at the local farm co-op and arranged to deliver seed to the farmer renting the Beck place."

Bill caught his mother's eye at this statement. "Sorry, son, I can't bring myself to call it the Watson place. Anyway, Jason had a farm accident while Julia was in town with the kids getting groceries and supplies. When she got home, she had to call the neighbor to help the police get what was left of Jason out of the combine. Apparently, he had asked the renter about learning to operate the machine and had picked a bad time to lean in the pickup head to check for cornstalks blocking it. Of course, there was a pile of seed corn delivered and stacked in the grain bin but neither the driver nor the helper had seen Jason or the combine when they dropped off the seed. The lane goes past where the combine was found and they would have had to pass it to get back to the grain bin."

Bill's look of shock prompted his mother to add, "Wait! It gets better, the low life didn't have any life insurance or a will. So in the end, Julia got the farm back but she also got a new round of debt without much in the way of revenue except her organic vegetable business. We all pitched in and planted her crops and, when they came off, she had enough to pay off the short term debts and cover Jason's funeral and other legal costs. Fortunately, all the lawsuits surrounding Jason's 'wife testing' program mysteriously dropped when he died and the farm was free and clear. All that was left were the legal bills to prepare a case that never went to court. She doesn't seem to have much money but with everything paid for she probably doesn't need much."

Bill looked thoughtful as his mother finished with, "I haven't seen her in quite a while but her kids ride past here on the bus everyday so they must still be living there."

Chapter 6 – Settling In

Bill and his father were very busy over the next couple of weeks getting ready for the harvest. All the equipment had to be pulled out, checked, serviced, greased and tested. He held back a bit further from the pickup head on the combine as he pictured the gruesome details that went with his mother's story. The soybeans would be the first to come off, followed in several weeks by the corn.

The soybean harvest went off without a hitch. They got the right amount of good weather at the right time and got their best quality crop ever. Their ideal target for the variety they planted was 19% oil and 35% protein. They got 18.8% oil and 35.2% protein. Bill and his father were ecstatic. Money in the bank.

After switching over for the corn harvest, everything was ready to go the moment the moisture level in the corn got down to or below their target of 18%. At that point, the corn would be dry enough to harvest and they could store it in their bins and dry it with forced hot air down to the standard of 15.5% moisture.

They started combining on the Monday. Because they owned their own equipment, they took it easy and only combined for sixteen hours a day. From the time the dew was off until the dew was falling again, they took turns driving the combine and driving the old eighteen-wheeler that they used to move the grain from the field to the bins. With the new auger system they had installed on the bins, it only took one of them to dump the semi-trailer and auger the corn up into the individual bins. By Wednesday they were down to a few hundred acres when disaster struck.

Hail.

A freak late season thunderstorm struck and pelted the remaining corn with marble-sized hail. As soon as the storm was over, Bill's father grabbed a disposable camera left over from their last trip, grabbed Bill and they headed out to the field to assess their losses. Bill used the camera to photograph the damage. He included far shots of the fields, close-ups of the hail stones amongst the plants and the damage to the stalks and cobs. At this point the leaves were dry so leaf damage would mostly just make for easier combining. Bill used his cell phone to call the crop insurance office to determine the next step.

They advised him to go ahead and harvest as usual but keep track of yield compared to the other fields on the farm. The yield difference and the pictures would be used to calculate the crop loss. The combine had weathered the hail pretty well but the custom tarp that covered the semi-trailer was shredded. More pictures were taken of the damage to the equipment. Bill called the agent that carried the equipment insurance policy. Once all that was settled, they combined the remaining crop and kept careful records of the weight and moisture level of every load.

When they were all done and had the last of the corn in the bins, Bill and his father calculated a loss of 30% of the yield from the hail. Bill headed into town to the drugstore where they had a newly acquired one-hour photo processing machine. He wanted to get the pictures and get the claims processed as fast as possible.

Bill was idly waiting around the drug store, scanning the various business magazines for signs of his old life while he waited. He didn't notice the comings and goings in the store until he did a double take at a vaguely familiar voice talking to the photo clerk.

Chapter 7 – Chance Meeting

It couldn't be.

It was. Julia had brought some film in for processing also. Bill couldn't believe it.

After all these years, Bill thought. Photography had put them back together again. What kind of irony was that? From his vantage point behind her, he could see Julia with her two kids in tow. Motherhood had been kind to her.

She had more curves than he remembered...but in a good way...no, a great way, he thought to himself. Her shapely rear was filling out her jeans very nicely leading up to a curving waist and a strong back and shoulders shaped by hard work and solo parenting. She still kept her dark hair long; he sadly realized there seemed to be too much grey. She had been through a lot and she wore it in her hair color.

As she turned toward him and away from the photo counter, his eyes were drawn to her chest. Time and nursing had rounded out her bust as well. He could see she must have gained at least one cup size but they still appeared to be sitting high and proud. Here goes, he thought as he stepped towards her.

"Julia, Hi!" What a brilliant opening line, he ruefully thought; all those years go by and I'm still not very slick. It didn't matter. Julia took one look and ran to him. They hugged tightly for a couple of silent minutes until her worried kids started to whine. She broke away from him and he glimpsed tears in her eyes as she bent down and swooped her kids up, one on each arm.

"Don't worry. Mommy just met an old friend. Jay and Louise, this is my old and dear friend, Bill."

Bill noted that Jason had been shortened to Jay, probably to remove a constant reminder of bad memories. Bill looked at each of the little mirrors of their mom and solemnly shook their hands, one at a time.

"Very pleased to meet you two. I can see you are your mother's kids because you both remind me of her when she was younger." Julia was still crying quietly and the kids noticed now.

"Mom, what's wrong? You're crying!"

"Bill is a very old and very dear friend. Seeing him after such a long time surprised me in a happy way. Nothing's wrong, you two. I heard you were back in town and I wondered what you were up to."

Bill shrugged. "Dad and I are back in business together. He and Mom are gradually phasing out and I'm phasing back into the business and buying them out. We've been working like crazy to get organized and get the crop off but, after I file the crop insurance claim, we're all done for the winter. Nothing left but to dry and deliver the corn on the contract."