Hidden Valley Farms

Thank you Pat for all your help.

*****

I guess it was me that first heard about Hidden Valley. It was mid February, a grueling time of year for a tax accountant. Long hours, deadlines, and the pressure of paying attention to line after line of numbers can get overwhelming. You couple that with the bleak, drizzly, weather of the Pacific Northwest this time of year and life was pretty miserable.

Gina was under pressure too. She was the manager of the Portland branch of a national retail chain in the furniture and decor business, Laguna & 101. 'Bringing California Style To Your Home Wherever You Live.' Her district manager was constantly on her about daily sales numbers, new credit card openings, and decreasing labor costs.

All of this work related stress was taking a toll on our relationship. It had been weeks since we had sex. I know the pressure affected our intimacy. Also Gina had put on weight in the past year. Her long hours drastically cut down on gym time. Once you start on a path of skipping workouts it can quickly become a habit. I think part of the lack of sex had to do with her self-consciousness about her heavier body.

It was during this bleak time in our lives that I first heard about Hidden Valley Farm. At lunch one day one of the guys in our office, Tim Merchant, began talking about it.

"My sister and her husband joined and they love the place." Tim said. "They talk about the fresh air, lack of stress, and the community they are building. Compared to this shit," and he slapped his hand on a tax file he had, "It sounds like paradise."

"Is that the place in Southern Oregon outside Grants Pass", Neil, another guy in our office, asked.

Tim nodded affirmative as he was eating.

"I read somewhere about the leader, some kind of genius in microbiology or something?" Neil offered.

Tim took a minute to swallow and went on. "The guys name is Simon Brand and you're right he does have some type of advanced degree in biology. My sister says that in Hidden Valley they escape the toxic lifestyle that they had been leading in the city. This Brand has some entire philosophy about it. I've got to say, compared to all this, it sounds tempting." Tom nodded toward the window as one of the many homeless parades down the sidewalk with a shopping cart full of his worldly possessions.

At that moment Tim and Neil mention a Zoom call they are required to attend and get up to go. I notice a flyer on Hidden Valley Farm Tim left behind. It was an informational get together at a nearby conference room tonight at 5:30. I read through it. It sounded kind of interesting. I knew Gina closed tonight so she wouldn't be home till after 8PM. As I left I grabbed the flyer and thought about it. Maybe I'll stop by. What could it hurt?

I went to the meeting. The speaker was a normal looking, clean cut, outgoing, smiling type. Around my age, early 30's. He talked about the beauty and simplicity of Hidden Valley Farm. Not a lot of details just a broad overview. And then he compared it to city life. Job pressures, financial pressures, the pressure of living in a city like Portland and how all these factors can poison your life and your relationship. It was as if this speaker, Rick, opened up my mind and saw what I was experiencing.

At first I thought it may be one of these cults that take all your money. It sounded different. Number One: you had to qualify to be accepted. Number Two: then you bought 'shares' of the Farm. They had an entire brochure. You became an owner, and the shares were your property. In theory you could sell them. And finally, Number Three: the representative from HVF was a normal guy. Not some oddball kook. He looked like he could be a friend or a neighbor.

At the end of the presentation there was a form that Rick handed out.

"Everyone," He said, "If you want to learn more about our plan, just answer a couple of questions and hand the form back to me when you leave. If it's not for you, no problem."

Hmmm, no pressure at all. When he handed me the form he made eye contact and gave me a slight nod of acknowledgement. He seemed genuine and sincere.

The form asked some questions about you. Were you married, did you have children, where do you live, do you own your own home, what you did for a living etc. it even asked your income range in fairly broad terms. Pretty personal, but in my opinion not quite over the line. It also asked for your e mail address.

As I was leaving I handed in my card.

"Hope to talk to you more", Rick said to me with a slight pat on my shoulder on the way out.

Driving home I vacillated between thinking how good this could be for Gina and I, or was I nuts to even consider this radical change for our lifestyle. One thing I did know, something was going to have to change for us. The pressures of our jobs were strangling our relationship.

Driving home I thought back to when I first met Gina . . . . .

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I ran track at the University of Oregon. I was good but not great. My junior year I placed fourth in the 1500 meters in the PAC 12 Championship. I also ran in the 4 x 400 relay and my senior year we placed 2nd in the PAC 12. Some guys can go pro in track but I wasn't at that level.

My scholarship paid for my college education. I studied business and eventually received my BS in accounting.

As an athlete I had the option of living in the athlete's dormitory. They were more like small apartments rather than dorm rooms. Many, including mine, had a private bathroom. It was a great place to live for a student athlete.

When I first met Gina she was dating another athlete. A basketball player, Reggie Lake. I had seen Reggie in the dorms and around campus, but did not know him. Reggie was one of those guys that could have 30 points one night and the next night have 4. Regardless he would keep shooting. What Reggie lacked in consistency he made up in sheer confidence.

He had a big mouth and was always talking on and off the basketball court. A kind of audacious charisma that often crossed the line and became obnoxious. I met Gina at a party. I knew she was dating Reggie, but at that moment he wasn't around.

Gina was my type. Curvy with round boobs, cute face and curly light brown hair. She always seems to have a big smile on her face. Beside the boobs the smile was what attracted me.

I introduced myself, "Warner West," I said and we shook hands. Both of us having big grins on our faces. There seemed to be some chemistry.

When I told her where I lived she asked if I was an athlete and I told her I was on the track team. Unlike the basketball and football players, other athletes at Oregon did not have the same amount of celebrity status.

We were having a great conversation when all of a sudden there was this loud commotion and pretty soon everyone realized Reggie had arrived. I saw Gina glance a bit nervously toward the noise.

"I, uh, I better go," she said.

I stared into her eyes, shook her hand, holding it a bit longer than I needed to and said, "So very nice to meet you Gina."

She stared back.

At that moment Reggie, in all his glory, walked up. He grabbed Gina by her arm.

"Let's go." He barked at her.

I looked at Gina and she was staring in adoration at Reggie. I then looked at Reggie and he was glaring at me with an unspoken challenge. I held his gaze for a moment or two and then looked back at Gina. She was willingly dragged away by the glaring Reggie.

Watching them leave she continued looking up at him with a willing, content look on her face as he pulled her through the crowd at the party. I didn't get it. I had just had a great conversation with a woman who, in my opinion, was intelligent, engaging, and confident. Yet the woman being led away by the basketball player looked insecure and weak.

Thinking about it later I felt like Gina and I had made a connection. Her adoring look at Reggie was so inconsistent with the cool, intelligent girl that I started to get to know. Oh well, I thought at that moment.

It must have been two years after graduation that I ran into Gina again in downtown Portland. I was meeting some people from the office after work for a drink. She was with a group of people doing the same type of thing. Even though our interaction in college was brief, my original impressions of her, for the most part, were very positive, and I liked the way she looked. I was attracted to her. At the bar with my buddies I kept Gina and her group in view using the bar mirror.

At one point I saw her get up and head towards the bathroom. Abruptly I broke away from my buddies and made sure that our trajectories would intersect in the small bar.

"Gina?" I said with a phony surprised expression on my face.

She looked at me with the beginnings of that beautiful smile but coupled with a puzzled expression on her face. She opened her mouth to greet me, but clearly she did not know who I was.

"Warner West, from U of O," I reintroduced myself to her. The seeds of recognition began to sprout in her but she still wasn't quite clear who I was.

"We met at an all campus party. You told me about your goal of being an interior decorator." I stated with what I hoped was a warm smile.

I think it may have been my voice or perhaps she actually did recognize me but suddenly she bypassed my hand and gives me a big hug.

"Warner, of course", she says. "How are you? Are you living in Portland", she asked. And we were off to the races getting caught up.

We both abandoned our original companions and ended up sitting at a small table, chatting into the evening. We caught up. She was living in Portland and was an interior designer and worked at a high-end furniture store too. I told her I was a tax accountant working at Eckles and Meyer, a regional accounting firm.

Sounds like Reggie was long out of the picture. In fact, if I followed correctly, he may have dumped her shortly after I had first met her at the party. Anyway from what I gathered at the moment she was unattached. This was good news.

I escorted her home and was not invited in. But I did get her number and a promise that we'd get together this coming weekend.

We started dating. My initial feelings that there was a connection between the two of us were reinforced. Once again, I saw a confident, funny, fun, intelligent woman. Almost all the thoughts of her being insecure and dependent were washed away. She was cool, smart and she had those nice round boobs. I liked her.

It happened after about four weeks of dating. So far physically we had kissed a lot and last weekend coming back from a hike in the Columbia Gorge we stopped at a rest stop to check out the river. It was turning dusk and no one was around. This time it was she who initiated the make out session.

She turned sideways, knees on the car seat facing me and put both arms around my neck and started kissing me. It was pretty intense and I was rubbing her back as we kissed. My left hand went to her breast. I noticed a momentary hitch in the kissing and then we got past it.

I was massaging the round tits and felt her prominent and erect nipple through her shirt. I started to untuck her shirt and effort towards what is known in high school as 'bare tit'. At that point her hand grazed my long erect cock.

All of a sudden she breaks the kissing, looks out the windows, and says. "Warner, let's head back to my place. I think my roommate is gone."

I was lucky not to get a ticket. I stayed erect the entire 45 minute drive back. To both our disappointments, the roommate was there. She had fought with her boyfriend and she was in for the night. Shit! I knew my cousin would be at my house so that was out too I thought.

We ended up ordering Thai food and talking with Morgan, the jilted roommate. I kept hoping Morgan would turn in early, but by 10:30 she was still re-telling us the details of her boyfriend problems. I got up to go.

Gina walked me out and in the darkness of the entry she molded herself to me and gave me a scorching kiss. After a minute she took my hands and placed them on each round breast. I massaged them and could feel her prominent nipples through two layers of clothing.

When I attempted to go under her shirt, she shivered and said, "too cold." I was disappointed but when her hand grasped my swollen penis I forgot about the temporary rebuff. Finally I knew I had to leave.

"Next weekend we are going away together, plan on it." I told her.

One last squeeze of each big round boob and I was gone. Driving away, I waved, seeing the big smile, the big boobs and the erect nipples prominent on the geography of her breast.

I lived with my female cousin, Shasta. Or rather Shasta lived in my house and paid rent. Shasta was a couple years older than me and was my Dad's sister's daughter. She had some problems growing up. Shasta was a nice person, just a little rough. She dropped out of high school but did get her GED. The guys she hung out with were questionable.

When I got home that night, I saw the motorcycle in the driveway, I knew she had company. I think I had met this guy before I thought as I walked in. Black leather jacket, big, with a long black beard.

"Hey, Warn, you remember Zeke don't ya?" Shasta asked.

"Zeke," I nodded a greeting towards the big man.

Immediately I noticed the aroma of marijuana. "Shasta, I've asked you not to smoke in the house." I hated policing her, but I had a few rules and smoking anything inside was off limits. After all it was my house.

"Listen brother," Zeke interjected, "It wasn't that much. I'll turn on the fan. Chill." He offered with arms spread, palms up and a half smile on his face.

My sexual frustration probably had me more on edge than I needed to be, but this was my house, I had a few rules, and this guy was telling me to chill?

"No you listen, Zeke," I turned on him and addressed him pointedly, "At your house, or wherever you live, you can do whatever you want. Smoke, chill, whatever. But this is my house, I pay the utilities, taxes, insurance and mortgage. That gives me the right to create rules. I don't have a lot, but this is one. If this doesn't work for you, well you have other options. Do we understand each other?"

He just stared at me, eyes squinting. Gone was the grin and supplicating body posture. He just gave an ever so slight nod of acknowledgement, but not far from the surface was a simmering hostility.

"Sorry, Warner." Shasta chimed in. It was I that now nodded to her as I moved to another part of the house.

I had purchased the house from my parents. It had been a rental. It was older with a detached garage. I was working on a project, converting the garage into an ADU (accessory dwelling unit). All I really needed to do was finish the bathroom. To be honest Shasta's rent money was needed income for all the house expenses.

The following weekend Gina and I spent in Astoria. Astoria sits in the extreme northwest corner of the state. Astoria is a historic town that has been revived and has a rich history, with museums, monuments and places of interest to visit. We saw none of these historical monuments. Our time was spent having sex.

I learned that Gina liked sex as much as I did. There was one episode I will relate.

It was Saturday afternoon and the weather was unseasonably in the 70's. Our balcony overlooked the mighty Columbia River near where it emptied into the Pacific. We had just jogged the waterfront path and were back in the room. Gina was on the chaise lounge on the deck in jog bra and workout tights.

I sat beside her and enjoyed our waterfront view, my view then changed to Gina and her round boobs, an arms length away. I started rubbing her shoulders and she sighed with pleasure. Fairly quickly my hands slipped into the jog bra. I could not get enough of her big round breasts and when I first got her naked I got to see, live, her large aureoles and pronounced nipples. One thing I had observed was that after sex, her nipples would stay hard for a long time. The long erect nipples turned me on.

I pulled the jog bra off. Our balcony wasn't specifically visible from below on, but we certainly were not hidden. My mouth went to her nipples and I spent several minutes on each one. Gina was flat on the lounger, arms stretched over her head writhing in pleasure. My tongue eventually trailed down her flat abdomen to the top of her tights.

My teeth grabbed the top edge of the tights and began pulling them down. She began helping the disrobement. She was now nude and potentially visible from below. As I was gently licking her vaginal folds my tongue found her engorged clitoris. Her pleasure was now audible.

Meanwhile she had pulled off my shorts and was stroking my erection. With slight maneuvering we were soon in the classic 69 position. Cock in mouth/Mouth on pussy. To be honest, in past sexual relationships this position never really worked too well. With Gina our lengths, the angles, the physical geometry all worked quite comfortably.

So here we are, broad daylight, my cock firmly in her mouth, my tongue dancing across her well lubricated genitalia and her squeals of pleasure muted by my erection, when all of a sudden she climaxes loudly. She pushes my head away from her pussy, too sensitive, and releases my erection from her lips. Pausing to catch her breath. She pulls me between her full round breasts and stimulates me to climax employing her soft round breasts in the early summer air.

As I open my eyes I see just of a glimpse of our hotel neighbor ducking around the partition between the balconies. Probably investigating all the noise. I'm not quite sure how much they witnessed, but likely they saw my eruption all over Gina's beautiful round breasts. A sight I won't soon forget.

On the way home Sunday, I reflected on my relationship with Gina. I really liked her looks. Curvy body, beautiful smile, slightly curly light brown hair and an attractive if not beautiful face. We seemed to get along good and she seemed to like me. She had a career of sorts. She wanted to be an interior designer, but was currently selling high end furniture for a local company.

And now there was the sex. Sexually we were very compatible. Though I had only a small sample size, this weekend, it was all very natural and satisfying. She seemed satisfied too. She was open and seemed willing to experiment. This was all good.

Were there any negatives? The only thing I could come up with was the odd relationship from college with Reggie Lake. Why would a woman that had so much going for her supplicate herself to Reggie, or for that matter, anyone? It did not make sense. For the moment I wrote it off to an immature college romance.

Over the next year our relationship got better and better. We became close. Any thoughts of the college relationship faded away. Within the next year I was planning on proposing. We had talked generally about marriage and I was confident she wanted it as much as I did.

A few things changed within that year. Number one, she was recruited and went to work in a management training program for a national home furnishings design retailer, LAGUNA & 101. This was a well known company that published a beautiful glossy catalog and sold overpriced furniture and accessories.

Number two, I finished the apartment over the garage and Shasta moved into this space. Now the house was totally mine and Gina's. Since Shasta had moved to the ADU, Gina had essentially moved in.

Speaking of moving in, that is what it appeared that Zeke had nearly done. As related earlier, Zeke and I did not have the best relationship, but my opinion was gradually changing. Unlike other men in Shasta's life, Zeke seemed to be in for the long haul with Shasta. He was also fairly handy and helped fix a few things around the house on occasion. I appreciated that.