Prolific: Farm Life Multiplied

Yee didn't understand my towel request, so she shrugged and took a knee, grabbing my cock and sucking it in, dripping and all, and made a "Mmmmm...." sound.

Involuntarily, I said (inhaling sharply), "Oh, wow, that's good!"

From right near me, I think from Terri, I heard, "Noted. Kevin likes clean up licks."

By the time I turned around to see who'd said it, and to maybe deny that I was really asking for it, whoever it was had moved and I didn't know who that was. It got to be a regular thing, and I was delighted, but I'd never asked for such beneficence.

Someone said, "Suha! Open presents!"

Suha sheepishly said okay, and went over to the couch, holding the terrycloth towel around and through her lap, and accepted another towel to sit on while she opened gifts.

Most of the gifts (yes, I watched) were just cards, hand made by our admittedly-not-rich roommates, sometimes with a dollar or two or five, or a 'gift-certificate' for a back-rub or a riding lesson or something.

Yee had finished and went back to the kitchen (after getting a hug from me), and I breathed more calmly, trying to understand how this whole thing had happened, running it through my head and wondering if I would remember the images I was seeing for the rest of my life.

The answer is, Yes, I have, and quite clearly.

The remaining question at the time was, though, would it happen again?

== Chapter: Really Happy Accidents ==

So, like I said, that was the 'first big thing'.

The second big thing - really big thing - happened 3 days later.

I came back from class and headed to my bedroom to drop my pack, and found Ann and Kelly in there, and Jay sitting in the chair by the window.

Jay looked back to me, and her smile was so huge and loving I didn't know what to do, or what was wrong. Her eyes and face were tear-streaked and tired.

Ann got up and shut the room door behind me as I came in.

I asked, "What's ... up?"

Kelly came over and took my hand, and motioned for Jay to come over to us. She did, getting up with an air of seriousness, but not foreboding or happy, either - it was hard to read what was happening, but apparently it was big, so I knew something was up.

Jay took my hand, and Kelly took her other one (though Kelly was definitely just there as support).

Jay said, looking me in the eyes, "Kevin. I'm pregnant."

My jaw dropped. I knew the next minutes would be crucial to ... not being a dick. I had to react the right way, the way they expected, the 'best' way.

I couldn't do that, I couldn't figure that out. All I could do was let out what was in my heart. I hugged her and said some mixture of congratulations and Yippee! Then, I got around to stroking her cheek softly and saying, "I love you, Justine Pieterovna Petrov." (Jay's real name)

She collapsed into a huge crying hug on me, and then side hugs from Kelly and Ann that lasted at least 5 minutes, just quietly.

Jay and I sat on the bed, Kelly beside her and Ann leaning against the wall with a contemplative look in her eyes.

If that wasn't the right thing to say, I guessed I'd found something close enough.

Kelly asked Jay, "What's going to happen next?"

Jay looked at me.

I was winging it. I said, "We are bound to this farm, to bring bounty to this farm, with love? I am in favor of that. I am also in favor of bringing bounty to your life, Jay. I can do that by helping you any way you need. You have lots of paths, choices, open to you, I guess, and... I'm happy to help however I can, however all of us can. Really, it's up to you to decide what to do."

I was trying to give her an out, a way to decide with my 'lots of paths' if she wanted to have an abortion, and she picked up on that. My real opinion probably wasn't well hidden, that I celebrated the event.

Jay said, "I already know, I'm keeping it. Him. Her. Whatever - I'm keeping them. Ukrainian Orthodox, we ... I have to."

I said, almost contradicting but in the effort to give permission to think independently, "Your decision, not anyone else's. What's best for you."

She looked at me and said, "What's best for me is to have your baby, and love him, or her, as much as I love you."

There's no arguing with that, so I didn't, I just stood there, beamingly happy, and, I realized, crying.

I shucked off my shoes, pulled off my flannel shirt (it had gotten cool that day) so I just had a t-shirt on, and climbed onto the bed, backing up with open arms, so she could come lay down and snuggle.

Kelly came around the other side and hugged me from there. There wasn't much room for Ann, who sat on the end of the bed and kept us company as we just lived in the moment.

Jay asked, "How am I going to TELL people?"

Kelly piped in and said, "Now, hold on, no rush here. My mom's friend? She got pregnant, and she didn't tell anyone until after the 3rd month, because you're not supposed to. If you miscarry, it's like, a big deal, and everyone freaks out, so, wait, that's what she said."

I hadn't known this, but filed it away.

Jay said, "No, no, not NOW. THEN! How do I tell them, THEN?!?"

Obviously, Jay knew about the 3-month rule, too. I was clueless about a lot of women's stuff even having grown up with a woman who shamelessly (metaphorically) shat on everyone around her. The women I was living with were So not like my mother.

Ann said, "Let's keep it quiet for now, maybe a few weeks, at least past the first month, that'll change the odds a little."

Jay looked at her and nodded and I realized how much Ann was a voice of reason.

Kelly said sarcastically but in a good humor, "Well, I'm not telling anyone. I'll just say we were all in here crying for no reason at all and people should shut up already."

We kind of chuckled at that, but it might have been tension diffusion.

Ann said, "Everyone has personal stuff. Just say, anyone asks today, tomorrow, whenever, that, you know, it's personal stuff. The 'family-related' excuse always works. If you want, I can suggest your dad and mom are having troubles, which will be true, sort of, since they will be, when you tell them they'll be concerned about you. They love you, I'm sure."

Jay nodded and we were silent for a moment.

Kelly said, "You're having trouble imagining talking with them?"

Jay's understatement-meter pegged. "Oh, boy."

I chuckled. "They are not you, Jay. You are you. You live for you. Find your happy place, your good-things place, and if someone tries to shame you for being who you are? Not your problem. I should know."

She looked at me like this was an odd thing to say, so I said, "Mom's an alcoholic. Still. Raging. Functional, sort of. Constant shame, for her and me. No way out of it. Had to pull the eject handles and go to college and get out of my mother's fairyland puke-horror show."

Kelly said, "Oh, God."

"Yeah. I'm okay, though, mostly now. But it's why there's no partying here, not in the house, not on the farm, not like drunken partying at least. Normal parties, sure. I can't handle drunken excess. Had my fill early in life."

I returned to our current situation and shook my head. "No, Jay, this moment is yours. It's your moment - you're young and that's a great time to do this, a fine time. Prehistory? You'd have had 12 kids by now, and the more the merrier."

Her head turned to me and had a look like I was kind of crazy, but also a little hopeful.

I continued, "And, you're incredibly smart, and beautiful, and amazing, and full of life force, it's ... overflowing into another brand-new person. It's your Power, your superpower."

She nodded. "Hard to feel that power when I'm ... disempowered."

I raised an eyebrow, "Excuse me? I can't make a baby in my belly. You're the one with the power. I just squirt stuff. You do the heavy lifting. You've got the only real power that matters, in the whole animal kingdom. Moms. Moms rule! Sometimes, they suck, too, but, yeah, in your case, Moms Rule. Best possible thing to be."

She laugh-cried for a while, and Kelly and Ann took their leave.

My vec-tensor, western civ, and thermodynamics lab and homework would have to wait.

Yee brought in dinner for us, on silver trays from the upper cupboards, which strangely were the only kinds of trays we had.

Jay had napped for a while, and I was doing some vec-tensor work in my head, since I remembered the problems from class, and had fun thinking through the proofs he'd shown. It seemed like something was missing from them...

Outside, I could hear voices streaming into the dining area. A little while later, they went silent, and then started singing. Someone - Dana, maybe? - had started this silly tradition of singing grace, a non-denominational prayer-song that had a silly ending, "...So it's all gree-at, shut up and eeeeee-at!"

There were four part harmonies at this point for this song, and I suspected even Dana didn't know where it came from.

Jay and I got up enough to sit at the desk and eat what Yee'd brought us. After that, we showered together (more or less), and went to bed early.

She wanted to know how things were going to be different.

I said, "Well, I have no idea. One way, nothing's different, world's still spinning, Yee's food is great, the governor's still a moron, you know, Life."

"But..."

"And, you're different. World is the same, maybe. You get this new thing to do. Not much changes, I hear, for, like, 7 months. Then, wham, tired, hurting, hassle, lots of stuff, one more mouth to feed, but happy cute baby face looking at you, so, there's that."

It was almost word-for-word what I'd read in a novel by John Updike, but it seemed real enough. Wise, maybe, or foolish, to try to echo it.

She was passive, listening, and I hoped I didn't sound like an idiot.

I tried a different tack: "Plus, we have LOTS of cantaloupe! And, nobody needs to know you're pregnant unless you want them to, later, whenever you want that later to be." I definitely could do non-sequiturs.

She laughed through sniffles.

I said, "I need to read some western civ tonight, can I? You can still do hugs, here, but... hang out?"

Her face turned cloudy. "I don't want to monopolize your time."

"Uh...?"

"Your..."

I interrupted this self-deprecating line of thought, I had to, it might lead to an unhelpful place.

I said, "Do me a favor. Go wash your face again. Go get your backpack for tomorrow from your room, like life is normal but you're busy and hurried. Don't talk much to anyone else, just, a normal night but busy, K?"

"Uh..."

"Yeah, so, books and clothes for tomorrow, then come back down and we can hang out. We'll cuddle, it'll be good. I'd really like that. I'm sure Ann has already rescheduled the rotation, happens sometimes, no worries. Sleep here, go to class tomorrow. Find a center in the normal, but a normal Here."

She looked at me like I was crazy. "That's..."

"Exactly what someone who's lived with a crazy person would say, yes."

She laughed again, and had hopeful eyes when she looked at me. "Here?"

I put on a smiling but mock-exasperated look, "Here. Wash your face first, though? You don't want people thinking I was the one trickling salt water down your cheeks."

She got up and did what I said. Apparently, being a house rule ("obeying Kevin") mattered after all. I was about to think she'd never gotten the 'Obey Farm Rules' as an actual instruction, but she had, since she'd taken the tea the second time.

(She told me later that it had changed her life to be able to regard health food and workouts as a given, daily, and that studying had gotten lots easier so she got better grades. I figured some of that improvement was just the farm, or maybe getting pregnant so having more responsibility. Planning ahead always helps grades. Still, I wouldn't have said that out loud. Everyone is the expert on their own life, and even if they're misguided or wrong, if you tell them they're wrong about life choices, it's Always Counterproductive).

After she returned, we lay in bed next to each other, reading our respective classwork. Really, this translated to me reading and sometimes looking over at her, and her version was reading for a few seconds then looking blankly at the ceiling for minutes at a time.

After we turned out the lights, I held her tightly and she made some sounds that reminded me of a cat's purr.

== Chapter: Redesigns ==

The next morning, there were lots of quiet conversations, whispered and more respectful than furtive, everywhere I went.

It wasn't that I was there and caused them, I just happened in on people chatting in low tones.

Oops.

There wasn't any real doubt in my mind that news had leaked. I hadn't done it, I knew that, either by commission or omission, and I was highly confident Ann and Kelly were trustworthy keepers of secrets.

Jay herself seemed kind of dazed most of the time, and wanted hugs from people, or at least a lot of people gave her hugs whether or not she wanted them.

About a week later, Lucy called me to come out to the privacy of the captain's walk to chat.

She fessed up about how the news leaked. It was important to her, she said, that she not be untruthful, and keeping important info from me seemed like lying.

The electrical team had been in the basement right under my bedroom.

Sound, apparently, carried down there easily, and they'd heard Jay crying. Then, they heard her tell Ann why.

They'd heard me come in, and what I'd said, almost all of it.

I was a little upset at this; I didn't expect to be spied upon in my own house, but my anger was brief since I realized it was nearly impossible to keep secrets in a house as old and as full as ours was.

They'd decided it wasn't fair that some of them knew the news and not others, given how important it was, plus how I'd reacted, which mattered to them all greatly, she said.

During her telling me this, she started crying herself and we hugged it out until the rain got too uncomfortable, so we went inside.

We tied it up with the idea that Lucy's team should have told Ann immediately, but that maybe it was a teaching moment that we'd better be deliberate with how we managed secrets.

Coming down the super-cool built-in stairs, Lucy said she was also guilty because she hadn't known about my mom's alcoholism and how it affected me. She was amazed, she said, at how loving and caring I was, in the context of having grown up with those problems.

I didn't know about that and told her it was a horrible way to grow up I'd never wish on anyone.

Regardless of this confession, the whole house knew.

Life continued.

The weather snapped colder, even though it was early October.

We generally moved our work inside. But, with this news, there was suddenly Another Topic of conversation, about which room would be good for a nursery for Jay's bundle of joy.

I felt a little uncomfortable having opinions on such things since I hadn't been around kids that much in my life, aside from some neighbors that wanted me to babysit - a task I only undertook when the time horizon was limited or the kids were asleep.

Also, to be truthful, I felt that my mother's utter irresponsibility and lack of good guidance meant I was more of a tabula rasa on the good-relationships front, I had so little modeling of what that was supposed to be like.

Due to the news, someone had the idea that if Jay had a kid, then maybe a few other kids could be brought in and the giant barn space could be a day-care center, as a money-making operation. The basement would be a petting zoo... the plans were fanciful to start with, but developed into a more tangible business plan.

It fit as well because the horse-training arena work sometimes meant that parents dropped off one kid and the other had to wait, or if the other was too small, they'd have to play with whatever toys could be scrounged in the mediocre office / waiting area in the double-wide next to the arena.

One more thing: In that places's cultural context, that women were automatically the childcare providers. In our group, most had done at least some babysitting and knew perfectly well it was a reliable money-maker. They thought they could exploit this, to be paid themselves as well as make money for the farm.

Taking care of other people's kids seemed reasonable, but I was worried about liability in case something went wrong. Thus, my focus on how to build things shifted towards being more baby-friendly (read this as "SAFE"). Parts of the barn, for instance, were doors on the second story that opened out into nothingness, so hay could be loaded into a truck or wagon.

An outside door on the second floor seemed like a giant lawsuit waiting to happen.

The barn remodel was a puzzler for us anyway.

I should back up.

Carrie, who later became a reasonably famous architect, had torn into the problem of a barn remodel. We had decided the base issue was we needed a building that did multiple things.

That concept was transformed by the idea of a childcare center in it, so by next spring we could make money there and work inside over the next year's late fall and winter

The barn's 'basement' level animal pens seemed like an ideal place to still have animals, as a working farm / petting zoo, and give the kids something to do and explore during the day. That meant making the areas safe (no trampling) with suspended walkways, barriers, feeding and even washing areas (animals are dirty, I was assured).

Lumber was cheap, and Carrie had drawings done quickly. Carrie appointed underlings and they arranged with local welders to help with the "hard parts".

(An aside: If it isn't obvious already: every one of the girls that had come to live with me was FAR smarter even than a random set of college students. To this day I don't know how this happened.)

So, with the welding, we'd gotten some iron delivered, and Carrie had ordered a ton of equipment, too. We'd gotten arc welders, tools, supplies, clothing, all that. It wasn't to save money on equipment rental, we had roommates that wanted to learn welding, and, again, make tons of money doing that once they graduated, as a second job or just for fun.

The neighboring farmers were expert welders because, well, farming. That meant we had plenty of help (winter is slack season for farming) and they usually just worked off simplistic directions like, 'hey, we need an angle iron box this big, here' directions (despite blueprints being on the walls).

Those blueprints were drawn by a team of women, led by a woman architect, reviewed by a female architectural engineer, peer-reviewed by a set of vested-interest women who would be using the space.

The farmers didn't know that their every welding move was being recorded on cameras, either video or still photos. They might have seen cameras, and thought it was some kind of scrapbooking project.

The rural part of the community around our college had strong gender role stereotypes that were more constrained. We'd seen powerful women as professors and TA's and lab instructors and all kinds of things. But, they hadn't, so we kept them in the dark about our learning.

Those photos made it onto diagram boards in the library, and onto the walls upstairs. Welding practice, while they weren't there, continued under the instruction of Alice, a gal who'd grown up on a farm and knew welding.

Since Carrie's project manager role assigned different neighbor-welders for different jobs, they didn't know who was welding what, and could be counted on to opine about whether this or that was done right and why.

Next to the barn, our second building grew. It would be even larger.

Carrie's barn designs "carried" over to our second barn.

Even as we reshaped the inside of the first one, a new footprint grew, first as a deep excavation, then as construction styrofoam, then as rebar and large vertical I-beams, then as slab-heating pipes, each week adding features but fighting a clock that said it was hard to pour concrete in cold weather..