Midwest Farmers' Daughters Ch. 01

I flipped another page of the magazine lazily. It was far too hot to be stuck at work, and the shitty little box fan on the floor wasn't doing nearly enough to help the situation.

"God I'm so fucking bored!" I shouted to the relatively empty shop, slumped over the counter.

"Careful now," called Hailey from somewhere in the back room, "the Bible thumpers will hear you!"

I scoffed loudly at my co-worker; for one thing, the entire county of this back wood hick town was at the Peach Cobbler Festival over in Landsdown all weekend. Nothing got between these rednecks and their summer fair; it was almost a religious observation for them.

Then, of course, there were the actual, literal religious observations that kept the majority of them away. Or so they all pretended.

The phone rang out loudly and I reached to answer it with the languid urgency of a hungover ground sloth.

"Dirty Dan's Dildo Depot, home of the world famous $5 footlong special; five bucks off every foot of dildo all summer long. How can I help you?"

"Y'all open t'marrow?" said the gruff voice of a local bean farmer I knew to be Gus Johnson. Gus was a regular. Gus's wife did *not* know this; none of the wives did. Or they all looked the other way.

"Gus, you know that we are," I chided, drawing circles in the air next to my head with a finger for Hailey's amusement as she peeked around the corner.

*Click*

"And good afternoon to you too, dick hole," I said, slapping the cordless handset back into its stand.

"Gus again, eh?" my companion called again from the back, having resumed her unpacking of the inventory order.

"Every weekend," I replied with the dull enthusiasm of a man forced to watch paint dry.

"What's his problem, anyway?" she asked. I heard a box hit the ground, and she cursed loudly.

"You alright?" I asked over my shoulder. She made a reassuringly affirmative sound. "Yeah, I don't know. You know how these dudes are; every single one of them addicted to this stuff, and exactly zero of them willing to admit it."

"Well," she said, stepping out from the storeroom with a clipboard held toward me, "Jesus really is a hell of a drug I guess. Sign this for me?"

I took the offered cartage record, scratching my name across the bottom of the form and returning it to the diminutive little redneck emo who worked the store with me most days. She insisted that she was a 'scene kid', but the lack of available alternative outfitters nearby meant that black t-shirts and black box dye were as good as she could manage. It wasn't much, but she stuck out like a sore thumb in these parts; anything that wasn't a dress on a woman was decried as scandalous in town.

And no, nothing ever happened between us. I didn't look enough like whoever Gerard Way was.

Still, she made good company during the long hours at Dirty Dan's. Between poking subtle fun at the ignorant hicks who came in, and generally goofing off during the unreasonably quiet evenings, we had an easy sibling-friendship thing going. It was just nice to hang out with someone who wasn't a world-class prude like everyone else in that God forsaken shit hole.

"You going to the peach thing at all?" I asked idly, still flipping through a shockingly out of date issue of BombShells Monthly.

She looked up at me over her phone, slumped in the rotting old chair that served as our break area behind the counter; her eyes rolled so hard that I feared she'd detach a retina.

"I'd rather get kicked in the box" she said sarcastically.

"I'm sure that could be arranged," I mused, marveling at the centerfold pullout of the vintage issue in my hands.

"You wish," she laughed, idly kicking a heavily booted foot in the air in boredom.

The door to the shop dinged loudly; we both craned our necks to see who it was, but the stacks of sex toys and shelved DVDs hid the newcomer from view. Hailey turned back to look at the globular security mirror affixed to the ceiling in the back corner of the long, narrow shop.

"Shit!" she hissed, slinking to the ground behind the counter like she'd seen a ghost.

"What the...Hailey, Jesus," I stammered, scrambling to avoid having my toes crushed as she crawled on all fours back into the storage room she'd only just emerged from. "Hailey where are you..." She peeked back around the corner, pointing conspiratorially at the large mirror on the wall, angled to let us see most of the shop from behind the counter.

I squinted, hard, still not sure Hailey's reaction was warranted, even if the customer wasn't our usual type; instead of a burly farm hand in denim overalls, as I might have expected, a woman in a yellow sundress covered in little white daisies moved through the store at a glacial pace. I looked back to Hailey, still on the ground in the room behind me, to shrug my shoulders. She might have recognized the woman, but I couldn't place the brunette's face to save my life. There was nothing for it.

"Welcome to Dirty Dan's!" I called out, trying to sound friendly. In the two summers I'd worked here, she was the closest thing to a woman I'd seen walk through the door. The figure in the mirror looked around, orienting herself to the sound of my voice.

"Hello?" she called back, turning the corner of a rack of fake leather harnesses and spotting me out. Her hands smoothed the front of her dress nervously as she approached.

"Hey, hi there," I said with what I hoped was a warm smile, "anything I can help you with?"

"Well," said she said nervously, trying hard to pretend she wasn't fighting a mighty urge to look around her, "I, ummm, thought you could..." She gave into her curiosity and let herself see her surroundings properly; the posters of topless women, the racks of rental movies on flimsy wire shelves behind me, the giant motorized blowup cock turning slow circles in the air above us on its tether. I imagined it was all a bit much for a girl like her.

But what a girl she was. Rosy cheeks and a wide band of freckles were framed by wavy tresses of brown hair, and I threw myself into a weak moment of dreaming about her big brown eyes staring into mine. She was built in a way that the local farm boys affectionately referred to as 'corn fed'; not overly curvy, but in no danger of blowing away in a breeze either. I'm not sure the sundress could have fit her any better if it had tried. I wanted desperately to see underneath it.

"First time?" I asked, hoping to snap her free of her speechlessness. She treated me to a wide, if nervous, smile.

"Yes. Yes! It is," she said, still trying to work up the nerve not to run out the door. Her hands fidgeted at her waist. "I was just, umm, well...I was hoping you might be able to help me with a little something?" The lazy drawl of her accent was like a cool glass of sweet tea on a Sunday morning, or whatever other hideous cliché you'd like.

"Well I'll certainly try," I offered, trying to slide the dirty magazine I'd been reading off the counter unnoticed.

"Well I just thought maybe y'all had some, uhhh..." her nerve was failing her quickly, "Oh gosh, I feel so silly!"

"Is it the dick balloon?" I asked, pointing above us at the phallic zeppelin buzzing along its inexorable flight path. She looked up, laughing sweetly at the absurd blimp, covering her nose demurely with a hand when a brief snort escaped. It was the cutest little oink I'd ever heard.

"Oh goodness!" she chuckled, "now that's funny!" I was elated that I'd banished her nervous reluctance, but still didn't recognize her from any of the other 20-something girls in the area. "I just need something and thought this was the kind of place that might be able to help."

"Well," I offered, gesturing broadly at our surroundings, "we've got plenty here, and I can order whatever we don't have. What do you need? A toy?" I imagined that a little electric nightstand friend might be what she was after, but her blush insisted otherwise. She shook her head insistently, embarrassed at the thought.

"No, gosh! I couldn't do that; what if mama found it? Oh Lord, she'd smack me black and blue!" Her eyes lit again on the rack of rental movies behind me, "I think something like that?" she said, pointing vaguely behind me.

"A movie?" I said, happy to have something to work with, "Yeah, sure. Red stickers are five bucks a week, yellows are two a day. Anything on the top is pretty new." It began to dawn on me that trying to flirt with what was assuredly a first rate, upstanding daddy's girl while standing in front of a rack of 285 rental porn movies was a bit of a stretch. Regardless, her nose scrunched up in ardent concentration as she inspected the display, and I dared to dream for a moment. After all, she had come in here, hadn't she?

My phone lit up next to me on the counter while she peered on, and I swiped the notification from Hailey away without a glance.

"Oh I just don't know," she said, "this is really silly, but I need your help."

"Sure, I mean, what kind of thing are you in the mood for?"

"That's just it! I just need to learn!"

"Learn?" I repeated.

"Mhm," she nodded abashedly, "I just haven't got the first clue and I was hoping that y'all had like, uhhh..."

Good Christ. She was clueless.

"Oh. Oh! Okay, yeah. That's...that fine! Perfect!" I knew I was stammering, but there was no helping it. "Well then maybe just something easy. Easy? Just plain, I guess?"

Her eyes lit up a little, liking the sound of something plain and easy. I grabbed a case that had the most vanilla looking title I could spot; I might work in a sex shop during my summers, but I really didn't partake like that, and had no idea what most of these were really like.

"Try this?" I offered, holding Angels and Airlines 2 out toward her. She took it from my hands like she might have done with a live rattlesnake, turning the cover over in her hands to look at the half naked stewardesses and list of talent that the movie starred.

"This one's...good?" she asked. I had no idea, but renting it to her meant that she'd be back in to return it, and that was good for me. She chewed her lip in consternation.

"Oh yeah, it's, it's...really great. Definitely what you're after, nothing too crazy," I fibbed.

"Okay. Okay, yeah. Perfect!" she exclaimed, sounding genuinely excited as she reached into the small purse that hung at her hip. She jammed the $5 bill into my hand and turned on her heel sharply to leave before I could remember to get her information.

I was leaned nearly all the way over the counter to watch her hips sway themselves right out the door when Hailey finally reemerged.

"Did you see my text?" she asked, whispering unnecessarily.

"Nah, who is she?" I replied, still craning to watch the corner of her skirt whip around the corner and out the door.

"That, my hopeless friend," she said, "was Kayla Brown. Her family has 4500 head up on 8th line, you know?"

The revelation meant nothing to me, and I told her as much.

"I forget you didn't go to high school here sometimes," she clarified, "but her daddy is Kenny Brown. Reverend Kenny Brown."

*******

Having rented the good reverend's daughter such filth had my insides knotted in uncomfortable twists all night. I lay tossing and turning in bed for uncounted hours, miserably trying to reason out how I'd ever look her in the eye again. It shouldn't have mattered who she was or what family she came from, but knowing did change things. Somehow.

The ride back to work the next morning felt longer than ever; it was a relatively long trek from the house I watched for my aunt and uncle in the summers anyway, but the moral conflict made my own company uncomfortable.

"Oh shut the fuck up," Hailey chastised me when she arrived for her shift an hour later, "what the hell is there to feel guilty about anyway? She's the one who came in here anyway, and she's got about a billion times more to lose than you do for it."

She was right, damn her. She usually was.

"Besides," she carried on, "who gives a fuck anyway? Her mama catching her with that would be the most interesting thing that could possibly happen in this town anyway. But I wouldn't worry about it; we're way out in the middle of nowhere anyway - who's even gonna see her out here?"

It was true; we were pretty out of the way out here in this derelict lot off the county line, and even the regulars kept driving if they happened to see another car in the parking lot. Nobody around here would risk getting caught dead in a place like Dirty Dan's.

"Is there anything that needs to be done today?" Hailey asked, breaking my contemplative silence.

"Just mopping out the gloryhole" I said; the little stalls in the back corner of the shop had never been used in living memory, so mopping the gloryhole was our little private joke to say that there was fuck-all going on. Hailey blew up into her bangs, tugged her phone out of her pocket, and slumped into the old recliner. I leaned on the counter. This was the way things were most of the time.

We had a few customers through the day; the ding of the front door bell caused my heart to drop every time, and Hailey started to snicker at me each time my head snapped around at the door's chime.

"Hey there Hailey," leered a bumpkin at the counter with a cheap blowup doll in hand.

"Hello Daryll," she replied with barely veiled derision, dragging his name out comically.

"Comin' to the dance tonight? Last night of the fair," he asked hopefully.

"Why don't you take your girlfriend there, big fella," she retorted, aiming her look at the inflatable he placed on the counter.

"Awh come on now, don't be like that!" He looked to me for support while I rang him through, but I was busy trying to hide my smirk at the poor guy's misplaced affections. "And this is for my cousin's stag party next week anyway!"

"Sure it is, champ, sure it is," she said with a finality that warned Daryll off another pass. He was nothing if not persistent.

"Better luck next time Dary," I offered sympathetically, handing him his bag, "at least your mama didn't raise a quitter."

"Yeah," he said dejectedly, "I guess. I'll be seein' y'all later."

"Poor fucker," I said as he pushed out the front door and climbed into his truck. "Surely you could go dance with the guy one time. He's far from the worst you could do around here."

"First, shut your whore mouth. Second, I'm pretty sure his family tree is a circle. You know his brother has six toes on his left foot?"

"Well yeah, but it's okay because he's only got the four on the other one."

We fell to fits of laughter, making a slew of silly jokes back and forth for the better part of the next hour.

Until the door opened again. Both our eyes darted to the front of the shop, then to the mirror when the newcomer couldn't be spotted over the shelves. It was her. She was back.

"Don't you..." I started to hiss, but Hailey had already slunk off into the inventory room again, leaving me alone with Kayla.

"Hey there," I offered, hoping I sounded halfway confident. I know that I didn't.

Kayla marched up to the counter; the mildly annoyed look on her face was almost enough to distract me from the way her hips swung in the dress of the day; a red number with little white spots and a cute bow pinned to the neckline. She slapped a paper bag down, presumably containing the movie I'd rented to her.

"This!" she began, shoving the bundled parcel toward me, "this was not what I expected!" I stammered to reply, unsure of what could possibly make the situation better for her.

"I'm sorry?" I tried.

"The things those people were doing! The...the...positions!" Her eyes darted furtively around, as if to check for hidden threats among the shelves. "And the butts!"

"The butts?"

"They were putting...things in there!" she insisted.

"Well, I mean, yeah; they do that sometimes, you know?"

"People don't do THAT!" she retorted indignantly, gesturing sharply at the bundle between us. "You can't!" Her hands slapped down on the counter top to emphasize her point. I wasn't about to insist that you could, but I did think about it. "You said it was normal!"

"I thought it was! Really! I mean, a little butt stuff isn't that out of the ordinary, but if that wasn't what you..."

"Me?! I wouldn't care if it was *just* me! I'd have just turned it off if it was JUST me!" She continued to punctuate her angry tirade with hammered slaps on the countertop.

"Who else did you watch it with?!" I asked, horrified.

"Well! It..." she trailed off, anger ebbing toward embarrassment, "it doesn't matter!"

"Okay, well, I am sorry. Really! I honestly did think that one was going to be pretty tame. I promise!"

She squinted at me quizzically, lips twisted in a pensive way to suggest that she wasn't sure if she was finished with me.

"Hmm. Well," she began, coming to a resolution, "you can have this one back." She shoved it toward me and I robotically went through the motions of checking it back in, scanning the barcode and opening the case to make sure the disk was in there.

"Oh shit..." I muttered.

"What?" she demanded.

"You didn't notice?" I asked, holding the case open for her to inspect. The title emblazoned on the disk read "ALL ANAL HOMEWRECKERS 3", pasted across the splayed buttcheeks of a woman who held them apart viscously. I don't need to tell you where the hole in the disk happened to sit.

"Oh," she said quietly, "I didn't really look that close. I was wondering where the stewardess on the cover went." I let a guilty smirk cross my lips, and she let herself giggle slightly.

"Listen," I laughed, chucking the case into the returns bin under the counter, "do you want something else? Seriously, I feel so bad; I'm supposed to check them all when they get returned." She waved off the offer vigorously.

"Oh no! No no! I couldn't; it's fine, really! I just...I don't think..."

"You sure? Honestly, I don't watch much of this stuff myself but maybe there's something..."

The front door dinged loudly; Kayla's eyes widened in horror, looking to me desperately, begging for some intervention. Thinking fast, I stepped around the counter and clutched at her arm, dragging her to the back of the store. I glanced back toward the counter as I maneuvered us toward the unused stalls in the back, carefully keeping shelves and displays between us and the front door. Silently praising Hailey as a goddess, I heard her greet old Gus just as I shoved Kayla into the converted closet, pulling door shut behind me as I squeezed inside with her.

The muffled sounds of Gus' voice barely penetrated the cramped space; Dan, who had optimistically turned the spare storage space into a bifurcated pair of smaller rooms years ago, had installed soft paneling along the walls of both spaces. I realized that I had crammed us into the "giver's" room; the smaller of the two spaces, it was only really intended to be big enough for one person to comfortably stand in to get their cock through the hole in the shared wall. The other side would have been far more comfortable, as it was configured with a small bench and a soft padded cushion to kneel on.

"Can they hear us?" Kayla whispered quietly into my chest. I realized that she'd wrapper her arms around my trunk, squeezing herself into me tightly. The room was small, but not that small.

"Shhh," I urged, "I don't think so."

"Are you sure?" she hissed.

"Stop talking and it won't matter," I urged. I heard her huff indignantly in the dark, but she clung to me relentlessly still. Gus' booming voice continued to batter at the door.

"How long is he going to be here?" she asked impatiently after a minute.

"He's a talker," I said, "he could be here a while."

"Yeah but it's hot in here! Is there a light?"

"No, but you're standing on my foot."

"Sorry," she said, trying to shift off, "is that better?" It was.