Down on the Farm: The Whole Story

It was the middle of summer, and the days were hot and humid, but it was cooling off nicely as the evening wore on. The overhead garage doors had been open all day, so the garage wouldn't be too hot for Kayak when we closed up for the night, but I resolved to myself: I was going to install a serious exhaust fan in the garage to keep it cooler overnight.

There wasn't much cleaning up to do, having grilled out and eaten off paper plates. We kind of lazed around, the three of us, but when it came time to head in to bed, Kayak gave us such a sad look that we couldn't lock him in the garage. "Come on, you ugly mutt!" I said to him, and he followed us right into the house. "You can sleep in here, but sleep on the floor, not in our bed!"

"Not worried about fleas?" Gina asked me.

"Yeah, I am, but I was going to replace these worn carpets anyway. We just might have to do it sooner, is all."

We left the interior doors all open, and had the windows open as well. The house did have air conditioning, but it was an old unit that I planned on replacing, and it sounded like a freight train. Kayak seemed to understand, and laid down in a corner of the bedroom, about as far from our bed as he could get and still be in the same room, as my girlfriend for the day, extended, and I climbed into bed.

It was too warm to even think about pajamas, and I always slept nude anyway. I didn't know what Gina's preference for nightwear was, but she seemed to like sleeping unencumbered just fine.

This night was different. Up until now, sex had been hurried and hard, but not tonight. A few soft kisses, and Gina was in the mood to make love, make love slowly. Her touch was subtle, so light it was like feeling a whisper, so delicate that there were times I wasn't sure that she had touched me. Her touch was like a hint, like a quiet promise, when she finally moved her head lower to take me in her mouth.

Oh, wow, she was just amazing, teasing me with her fingertips, with her tongue, even with her hair, light touches mixed in with slightly stronger pressure when she took me into her mouth. It was the most sensuous combination, one in which I thought I'd never get off like this, and one in which I didn't think I could stop myself. I don't know if she was doing me for a minute or an hour, but however long it was, it was sheer pleasure. Finally she whispered, "Make love to me."

Gina got on her back, but instead of me getting on top of her, I laid beside her, lifting up her legs and entering her from a side position. Like this, I could go for hours, and Gina seemed to love it. I could see her climax building up inside of her, but it was building ever so slowly. Her hand in mine was the only communication I had to the tension building up, as she squeezed my hand harder. Then, just as I thought I might have to change positions and make love to her more forcefully, it washed over her, as her body tensed up and a barely there cry escaped her lips.

With the tension in her body, her legs straightened out, which forced us apart in this position. As soon as Gina recovered from her climax, she turned toward me, kissed me, and then got on top of me, guiding me inside her again. She started making love to me again, and again ever so slowly, with soft kisses and caresses, and the most gorgeous smile ever on her face. I wasn't sure whether she was done and this was all for me, but even as slowly as we were going, I could see the tension building up inside her again. Finally, with a cry of "Oh, Richard!" she climaxed again, and that was it, I could take no more, and emptied myself inside her. She still hadn't said that she loved me, but at that moment, I knew that she did.

It was a cold, wet nose that woke me up, as Kayak was telling me that he needed to go out; the dog was clearly housebroken, even though he'd been a stray. The sky was just starting to lighten outside the window, and Gina was still asleep, as I got out of bed to let our dog out. It was easier to just leave the French doors open for the dog, and then I stumbled into the bathroom for a leak and to brush my teeth.

I walked quietly back to the bedroom, still in the half-light of dawn, and sat down on the edge of the bed, just looking at my lover. She was still asleep, laying on her stomach -- and I never knew anyone who could sleep on her stomach; I sure couldn't -- her legs slightly apart, her arms spread out, and her head turned away from the window and the dawn. Her skin looked soft and only slightly tanned -- she was naturally fair-skinned -- the muscles in her back and her calves standing out a bit. Her figure wasn't that of a teenager, but the solid one of a woman who was fit in her forties. I couldn't think of any more beautiful sight in the world than Gina was that morning. Finally, as the room started getting lighter, I heard her whisper, "Morning," to me.

With that, I bent down to give her a soft kiss, which got me another smile, quickly followed by, "Hmmm, you've already brushed your teeth. Let me get rid of my morning breath, and then you can kiss me again," as she got up and headed for the bathroom.

"Coffee this morning?" I asked her through the bathroom door. I got a muffled "Mmm hmmm," which I thought was a yes-through-toothpaste, so I headed out and opened up the garage, still naked, just like yesterday, and got the coffee started. Fortunately, I'd run water to the garage as well as electricity, because that was my, no, our kitchen until I finished the one in the house.

I still had most of the dishes and kitchen stuff in boxes in the garage; no sense opening them until I had the kitchen done anyway. Gina was taking longer than I expected in the bathroom, and I was about to head back inside, to make sure something hadn't happened, when she finally came out, wonderfully naked -- this was becoming a very nice habit! -- and toweling her hair dry; she'd taken a quick shower.

"You know, I'm really liking our mornings together," I said to her as she stepped into the garage to get her coffee.

"Summer won't last forever, sweetie," she said to me. "I'm guessing that this won't work so well in November."

"By November, I'd better have that kitchen done! We can still have our morning coffee like this, just inside the house."

"Not for too much longer, I'm afraid. I'll be back to work in a month, and I have to be at the high school by 5:30 in the morning. The school has a breakfast program, free for kids from poor families, and we have to get everything ready and cooking, because the cafeteria opens at 6:30 for that. Almost every student eats breakfast at school now. It's a good twenty minutes to the school, so really, I'll be out the door by five AM, 'cause I always want to be early."

Well, that was kind of a downer, but it was real life: Gina had a job, a pretty good job for someone in Appalachia with no education beyond high school. It left her with summers off, which was nice, but it meant that she was a hard worker and a dedicated individual, and I liked that.

It also made me realize what was growing inside me. I had almost told her that I loved her a couple of nights ago, but I bit my tongue at that, knowing it was way too early. Our conversation of yesterday evening told me that she was feeling it too, but was being sensible about things.

But something else was growing inside me as well. I knew that I was falling in love, maybe faster than she was, but everything she did, every way she was, was creating a growing respect for her. She was smart, she seemed honest, she was very forthright, and she was a worker. Gina had had a hard life; that was obvious not only from what I thought was a string of loser boyfriends but to growing up poor. She hadn't told me yet what had happened to her father, but her mother's house was somewhat rundown, even if it was as clean as a house which needed work could be.

Me? I hadn't grown up wealthy by any means, but my parents had been solidly middle class, and if they couldn't buy me a Corvette when I turned sixteen, my brothers and I hadn't been wanting for anything. I didn't really know anything about growing up poor. The only hardship, if you can even call it that, I faced was the fact that our father insisted than my brothers and I do a hitch in the service before college; it was hard work and discipline, he said, and the GI Bill would help with college expenses afterward.

And it worked, worked well enough that Mike, my oldest brother, had stayed in the Army, and was a First Sergeant -- a high ranking enlisted man, with a lot of responsibility -- down at Fort Benning. My next brother, Jeff, and I did our six years and got out, to do our own things. I went to Penn State after four years on active duty, and did two years as a reservist working for the ROTC program there while I was in college. I wasn't a drill sergeant, but the program had me running the PT (physical training) program for the cadets for my first two years at Penn State, which kept me in good shape. Being a 24-year-old sophomore, with a military bearing and haircut helped me catch Lori's eye -- and not just Lori's! -- in college, and we got married fairly quickly after that.

I was a civil engineering major, but discovered that I had a talent for writing while in college. The GI Bill, plus my Reserve pay, helped me make college easy, and I was just never a poor, struggling student. I sold my first short story before I got out of school. I got my degree, and passed all of my initial certifications, and got a good job as an engineer for a medium-sized construction company, again, making good money. A few more short stories brought in more cash, and my first novel did unexpectedly well. I kept turning out page after page of stories, and was thinking about quitting to write full-time, but Lori was dead-set against that.

We didn't argue all that much, at least not at first, but we were drifting apart. My job was taking up fifty, and sometimes more, hours a week, and writing had me spending more and more time at the computer. Lori spent a lot of time watching television while I was writing, then more time going out with her friends, and, as I soon began to suspect, spending time going out with her boyfriends.

I guess that I deserved that, because I wasn't spending enough time with her, even when we were in the same house. Thing is, even once I started suspecting that I wasn't doing everything I should to be a good husband, I didn't try to be a better husband to keep Lori with me.

It was a hard thing to admit to myself, but I was a lot better at writing about romance than I was at being romantic with a real flesh-and-blood woman. When it turned out that there were other men out that who were better at being romantic, I almost didn't care. Lori and I had a few fights, but most of them weren't about her having a boyfriend; they were huge arguments about stupid little things.

We finally calmed down, just long enough to decide to split the assets fifty-fifty, which meant selling the house. Fortunately, we'd bought fairly cheaply, really cheaper than the market, and were able to ride out the housing crash without going underwater. As the market recovered, and property was really going up around State College, we were able to sell high, really high, which left me with the cash on hand to buy this place. I'd done a lot of work on our old house, which increased its value, and gave me the skills to buy a fixer-upper like this place.

The stupid thing was that I thought I was pretty much done with women. My plan was to pick up some chick every once in a while, just to get my rocks off, but nothing serious. That was easy-peasy around State College -- for those who don't know, the town in which Penn State is located is named State College -- and it wasn't even among the hot-to-trot coeds; there were plenty of divorced and not-yet-divorced and even just-out-for-fun married women trying to get in on the carefree college atmosphere, recapture their lost youth as it were, and I was more than willing to take care of their desires for a night.

But it was also an empty life. I was coming home to an empty apartment, and trying to write my romance stories, with almost no experience in real romance myself. I didn't that I wasn't going to do that anymore, so I decided to change my lifestyle completely, quit my day job and move to the country. I found this place on Zillow, got the price down even from as low as it had been, came down, took one look at it, and bought the place, cash.

And then Gina showed up, just plain showed up. Maybe it was God, or fate, or just a lucky accident, but the more I thought about what my life had been, the more I realized that Gina was made for me. I wrote about people finding their soulmates, but never really thought that the idea of soulmates was a realistic one. Yet, here she was, and we were making a perfect couple right from the start, as though everything just fell into place.

Is that what love really is? Yeah, it was exciting to be with Gina, but it was also comfortable, instantly comfortable. What we had, already, was what I wanted forever, but how could I know that this would last beyond next week, beyond a month?

"Penny for 'em," Gina said, pulling me out of my reverie.

"Oh, just thinking about things."

"Things, as in thinking about us?"

"How the Hell do you read me so well after what, three days now?"

"You're not quite an open book, Richard, but at least a half-open one." She smiled at that.

"I was just thinking how lucky I was, and how I never wanted this to end."

"Never is a long time, sweetie. Just take it for what it is so far. What have we got to do today?"

That brought me back to reality. "Well, I've got to grout the kitchen floor today, and then tomorrow, after the grout is cured, start putting in the kitchen cabinets."

"What cabinets? You don't have any here."

"Yes, I do. You see that stack of plywood there? Those are the cabinets; I just have to build 'em, is all."

"You good enough to build that kind of thing?"

"Yup! I've got the kitchen all measured up, and the designs planned out and sized. The plywood will make the boxes, and that pile of reclaimed wood will be the face frames and doors and exposed sides. Unless, of course, you don't like that look."

"What, you're offering me design choice on your kitchen?"

"You already said that this was our place." Gina looked at me, kind of stunned.

And then the stunned look vanished, and a big smile crossed her face, as she came over, put her arms around my neck and drew me into a hard kiss. "OK, tell you what. You build that first cabinet, and just one face frame and door, the way you planned, and we'll see how they look. The thing that would be most important to me is that we can keep them clean. The look sounds intriguing, but I worry that it could hold all kinds of dust and dirt.

"And here's the deal: I'll grout the kitchen floor today, while you work on that first cabinet. That'll get things done faster, and we can see if we both like the look."

"You OK with grouting like that?" I asked. It had never occurred to me that Gina knew how to grout floor tiles.

"I've never done it before, but I've seen Nicole Curtis do it on TV, and I think I can get it done. You'll just have to show me how to mix the grout."

Well, that was easy enough! I already had the sanded grout mix in bags, and all that was required was mixing it with water. I had done this before, using a chemical sealer instead of water, but it produced an unworkably thick grout if I followed the instructions. "OK, let's get dressed and get at it."

"Do we have to get dressed to do this?" Gina fake pouted at me.

"Yeah, we do. You don't want your bare knees on the tiles, and I'm sure not running my table saw naked."

"Oh, so you want me on my knees, huh?" Gina was teasing me hard now, but this time I was ready for it.

"Hands and knees, tonight, but only if you get the whole kitchen floor grouted. If you don't get it done, you don't get any."

"Yeah, right mister, you're going to cut me off? Betcha you won't!"

We were laughing as we headed back inside to get clothes to go to work. I put on my usual work clothes, jeans and boots and a t-shirt. Gina pulled on another one of those really awesome cotton thongs, then her bib overalls. I wasn't real watching as I laced up my boots, when I heard her say, "Like this?"

I looked over, and there she was, in her tennis shoes, and the bib overalls, and no shirt at all. She had made me into a complete wreck, with just a look, but when I moved toward her, she put her hand up and said, "Uh uh! No sex for you until you get that cabinet finished!"

Damn, she'd turned it right back around on me. But that meant we'd get some work done.

So, we headed outside, and I showed her how to mix up the grout. It was easy enough, and Gina picked it up the first time. She was strong enough to carry the bucket of grout into the kitchen by herself, which I silently noted. Then, when I gave her my knee pads, she gave me a smirk and asked, "Should I be worried about having a boyfriend who owns a set of knee pads?"

With that, I left her alone to grout the floor, hoping that she wouldn't mess it up; I figured that I'd check on her in about an hour, so if she was messing it up, it could be fixed before there was too much done.

Back in the garage, I pulled out my drawings, and got to work on the cabinet carcass. The cuts were simple enough, but I wanted to make sure that everything was going to fit exactly the same. I carefully measured out the cuts for the side panels, and once I had the table saw set perfectly, I made the cuts for all eight cabinets, sixteen separate sides. Each side panel required six cuts, two of them vertical, except where I had a factory edge. That took some time, especially working alone, and I kind of lost track of time. Instead of checking on Gina's progress after an hour, it was almost 2½ hours later when I went back into the house.

Or rather, Kayak and I went back into the house. Gina had shut the door, to keep him off of the kitchen floor, which meant that he was 'helping' me. The dog was afraid of the noise of the table saw the first few cuts, but got used to it, so both the dog and I had sawdust on us.

Gina had rocked on! I hadn't been paying attention, but she was on her third bucket of grout, had about three-quarters of the floor done, and it looked good. "Babe! That's an awesome job," I complimented her, and it wasn't undeserved praise.

"You like it? I thought it looked pretty good, but I wasn't sure."

"Hey, it looks the way it's supposed to look, and you can't get any better than that." I was having to hold Kayak back, because he wanted to walk into the kitchen, and I didn't want his claws to dig into the fresh grout lines.

And, oh my God, Gina looked amazing! She'd pulled her hair back in a ponytail, to keep it out of her way, and she was hot and dirty, her skin glistening with a sheen of sweat. With just the bibs on, her right breast was showing. She got back on her feet and walked over to me, putting her arms around me and kissing me. My erection was definitely obvious through my jeans, and that made her smile, and tease me some more. "Uh uh, none of that, not until you get that cabinet done." Then she kissed me one more time, and pulled away. She took a long pull on a bottle of water, and then got back to work.

Well, Hell, I guess that I had better get a cabinet done, for Gina's inspection. I cut the back panel and the toe kick boards, just for one cabinet, and then set up the stacked dado head cutter in the table saw. I milled the rabbets in the backs of the side panels, to receive the back panel, and the dados for the bottom panels and a top stretcher, to keep the box square.

I wanted this to be rock solid, so I used both glue and my Kreg pocket hole jig, including drilling the pocket holes to anchor the face frames. I had the first cabinet assembled right around noon, and set it aside to dry while I built the face frame. It was then that Gina walked in; she'd finished grouting the kitchen floor, and wanted me to see it.