Fifty Bales of Hay (15 page)

Krissy looked back at him. He was being sincere. She knew it.

‘Oh, you poor, dumb darling,’ she said. ‘You should have picked up that Trev is a shit stirrer. You don’t have to do what he says. No matter what.’

They sat for a time, Krissy holding the young rouseabout’s hand as she continued trying to extract the thistle, their heads bowed close in silence. In the stillness, she felt an energy wrap around them. A melding of two lonely beings. Their breathing softened and fell into place
together, in and out. Something charged the air. An anticipation. A longing.

‘There you go,’ she said at last, prickle removed, holding it on the pad of the index finger for him to inspect. He reached for her hand and moved it away a little, so his eyes could focus on what was a tiny, clear sliver of thistle.

‘Amazing how much a
little prick
like that can hurt,’ she said, her tone carrying meaning.

‘Thanks,’ Shaun said, guilt written on his face.

‘Don’t be sheepish, Shaun,’ Krissy said, lifting his chin. ‘We can all be made to look like suckers in this game. Bloody Trev. You really are a lamb, Shaun. This game can be tough and you need to grow up fast. I think they should call you Shaun the lamb, not Shaun the sheep. You haven’t earned sheep status yet.’

Krissy caught a flash of irritation in his eyes.

‘Cut it with the sheep jokes and my name,’ he said with a flare of anger in his voice. ‘I didn’t plan on working in shearing sheds. I was at uni. Up until … Mum … she…’ His voice trailed off. His jaw clenched, his mouth twisted in frustration. So, Krissy thought, Trev’s stirring on the four-hour journey to the shed wasn’t all he had endured.

‘Died?’ she finished for him.

Shaun nodded.

Krissy remembered what it was like to be twenty-one and new to the sheds with all that banter and stirring. She remembered what it was like when her dad had died. The aching void. She softened for Shaun and reached out and held his hand again.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

He shrugged and his mouth worked a little, although he didn’t pull his hand away. Instead, his thumb began to drift over the back of her hand, gently, in slow caresses.

He looked deep into her eyes. She smiled slowly.

‘So, do you want to grow up fast, Shaun? Would you like to win twenty bucks off Trev?’ Shaun’s cheeks went bright red again, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. But he nodded emphatically and he was grinning at her cheekily.

She leaned towards him and they were kissing, at first softly, then with urgency, and then they were tiptoeing along the slanting hallway of the shearers’ quarters, serenaded by the low rumble of snoring as they passed the closed doors, until they found themselves shut in Krissy’s room. They tumbled together onto the sagging single bed where Krissy’s swag was unrolled, waiting. The fog of chilled air came quick from their mouths as they hastily, hungrily, desperately, but delightfully, put their first fuck away.

Now, in the shed, Krissy heard the sliding door rattle open and shut as Shaun came in. She heard the sound of catching pens swing like saloon doors as he stepped onto the board. He stood looking at her in the dim light along the line of twelve shearing stands. He grinned as he walked towards her. As she stood over the bale, Krissy buried a victory smile and turned her back, reaching up for the wool stencils hanging on the wall from rusted eight-inch nails. He was gorgeous. A real looker. She was one lucky woman, and
she knew there was plenty more to come. She placed the numbers’ stencil onto the face of the bale and with the ink roller marked a blue five on the wool pack, followed by a zero immediately next to it. Then she grabbed for the Minja property stencil and inked it on, along with her professional woolclasser’s number.

She heard his boots behind her and the tick of the corrugated-iron roof as the heat from the day dissipated into the blue sky above. She felt sweat trickle down her back and a warmth and wetness gather between her legs. Her pussy clutched in a wink of desire.

‘Bale number fifty,’ she said, her voice as soft as the fleeces within, ‘SUP AAA FM — extra superfine — the best of the best and branded how I like it.’ Krissy swiped a loose strand of her blonde hair away from her eyes. ‘I’ve been waiting all day for this satisfaction. And this bale is
perfection
. That’s why I don’t like the woolpresser to do it. I wanted to press this one for myself.’ Shaun smiled at her, his head tilted to one side like a curious, cheeky kelpie.

‘I wondered why you sent Chugger back to quarters early when you had more pressing to do.’ His eyes glinted in flirtation.

‘You wondered right. Would you like a lesson in bale branding, young man?’ she said, her voice loaded with invitation.

‘I already know a little bit about it, but I’m sure you could teach me more, boss,’ he said, moving to stand before her. Krissy could see from the bulge in his jeans he wanted more than a lesson from her. Close to him, she caught the
scent of sheep and man’s sweat. The faint drift of deodorant. Unlike last night, this afternoon, in this shed, Shaun seemed to have a new aura of maturity. A confidence shining out of him. As if he had stepped into a class of his own. He was quality.

She reached out, grabbed him by his leather belt and pulled him to her. Her breasts pushed upwards in her blue singlet, beaded with perspiration, wool grease sheening her skin and her nipples erect with wanting. She put her hands on his firm young chest and tilted her head as he bent and kissed her in a swirling energy of desire. Their tongues were sliding together, the deep French kisses gentle at first, although soon gaining the same frantic urgency they had had last night. Then Shaun kissed down her neck to her cleavage and she felt his hot breath and the scrape of his stubble on her skin as he slowly licked and kissed the gentle rise of her breasts, pulling her bra aside, his mouth finding her nipple. Starving for more, Krissy began to unbutton Shaun’s shirt and peel it away from his angled, strong shoulders.

She breathed out a sigh of admiration at the perfection of his young body. His torso was long and smooth, tapering down to a narrow waist. Her desire was made deeper at seeing the change in him, no longer the shy boy of last night who had been almost crushed by the world. Today, he had been a man as he danced the dance of the shearing shed and offered her fleeces, tossing them lightly in the air so they drifted down onto the table with perfection. This budding man was beautiful, inside and out, and his mother
would be proud. She felt a stirring of emotion, a need to nurture this man through this particular passage of time. She recognised the privilege that was hers in their coming together. The shedding of her old self and the remaking of the new. She pressed the palms of her hands against his skin, as if he was a god, and kissed him feverishly over his torso. Next, she tugged his belt buckle open and waited impatiently as he drew down his jeans, then kicked off his boots and socks.

‘I want all of it off, now. I want you naked,’ she said. Her eyes were locked on his, her blonde hair escaping more from its ponytail and falling over her face.

‘Lie down,’ she said, pointing to the bale. He obeyed. She gasped as she took in the divineness of his body spread before her, his cock rigid and pointing to the rafters, inviting her on for the ride. But not yet. She stooped over momentarily to breathe softly onto the head of his cock, making sure she didn’t touch him. She wanted to tease him a little. She licked his cock once only, then blew again on it, hearing the deep inhalation of his breath and seeing the tensing of his stomach muscles, as his cock jumped in response.

She stood over him and popped the buttons on her Western shirt open all the way so her large breasts were better revealed to him in the blue singlet that she wore. His eyes fell to her breasts and she saw his cock jump and dance yet again. The head of it glistening invitingly. He began to move his hand along the shaft of his penis, but Krissy forced it away.

‘No. No touching yourself. Just lie still,’ she said. ‘You are all mine.’

She reached for the branding roller and the AAA FM stencil. ‘Like I said, the best of the best. Only the finest for me. And you, my dear boy, are a very fine specimen!’ She set the stencil on his flat stomach and began to roll blue ink across it. He glanced down, a slight look of panic on his face, but desire pinned him there on the solid square bale. He dropped his head back and groaned a little. The ink smeared on his skin and caught in the little dark hairs that ran in a line down to the base of his cock. Krissy drew a finger along the line and then ran her hand up and over his cock. Easy does it, she thought, this one was young. She didn’t want him going early, but he showed no signs. He was savouring it all, just as she was.

Drinking in the sight of him, she felt her pussy pulse with desire. Beautiful, inside and out. Quickly she shed her jeans and dragged her knickers down, dropping them on the lanolin-soaked floorboards, then swung her leg over him, straddling him backwards, propping her knees on the wool bale to better manoeuvre herself. She tipped her bottom in the air and dipped her head so she could wrap her lips around the head of his cock. He groaned as she slid her mouth wetly down over him and ran her hand up and down his stiff shaft. She angled her body and lowered herself, moaning as she felt his tongue flicker upwards to meet with her wet sex. He pushed his tongue into her and then ran it firmly over the taut button of her clitoris, as he used his long lean fingers to push inside her. The feeling of his mouth and hands was one of pure pleasure. She moaned
and angled her hips further, so he could eat her more deeply, her breasts touching the blue pool of ink on his belly that was now smearing across both of them. His cock was sliding into her mouth.

Feeling the sensations he was creating between her legs with his mouth, she plunged her mouth over him even deeper, wanting to consume him. He was delicious and suddenly she
had
to have him inside her. With her lithe little body, Krissy spun around and faced him, her knees gripping solidly to the firm face of wool bale number fifty. As she lowered herself onto the tantalisingly stiff pole of his cock and began to tip her hips back and forwards, she watched as the juices from their bodies began to blend with the bale ink on his torso. With spread palms, Krissy smeared the blue over his stomach, her thighs and across her own belly, and laughed a little at the sight — it was like the face of Braveheart gone south. Then she let her full weight sink onto him so he was deep, deep within her. He moaned and breathed, ‘Oh, god.’

Then, forgetting the world, Krissy began to buck and gallop and pitch, back and forth, riding him. Riding him hard. The heat and friction of the wool pack turned her knees red. Swathes of blue loosened by heat and mixing with sweat were smudged across their skin.

As Krissy felt her body rise to orgasm, she threw her head back. There, as she cried out, she caught a vision of wool draped over the beams looking like women’s fine lace underwear tossed there without a care. As she gave one last thrust, her pussy spasmed in waves of orgasmic pleasure
around Shaun’s penis and she felt his fingers dig deep into the flesh of her thighs. His drawn-out cry of ‘Ohhhh, yes’ rose to the rafters as he came in shuddering spurts within her.

It was in that moment on bale fifty that Krissy felt utterly blessed by her life. This shearing shed was her church and, at this very moment, now, she worshipped this man. She could feel the divinity of skin on skin and the sacredness of the shared pace of their breath. They lay there for a time, his fingers drifting up and down over the goosebumped skin of her back, listening to the bleat of the sheep outside as the shorn mob walked onto water in the evening light.

Eventually Krissy sat up and smiled down at him. ‘Shaun the ram, I reckon,’ she said.

He grinned at her and reached to caress her breasts, her nipples still raised in desire.

‘This will be the best twenty bucks I’ll ever win,’ Shaun said, smiling up at her.

‘You reckon?’

Shaun laughed and nodded, then glanced down to his belly, his fingertips swiping at the blue bale ink.

‘Does this stuff ever come off?’ he asked, holding up a blue index finger.

‘Not for a long while,’ Krissy said, running her own ink-stained hands over his stomach. She could feel his cock starting to stir again inside her. ‘So you, my beautiful boy, have just been branded. And now…’ she grinned in good humour, ‘… Trev suddenly owes me fifty bucks!’

E
dith Carter’s property had the tidiest lawns of all the farmers’ wives in the district. They were like the lawns of the royal estates back in England, ideal for croquet or strolling upon, but almost too refined for noisy, rambling children or summertime games of family cricket. The green swathe that was mown to perfection by Edith herself was irrigated almost daily with water diverted from her husband’s farm dams. The lawns swept their way up to a grand homestead and seemed to announce to any who drove past the house that the Carters were from a very important dynasty of graziers.

The two-storey homestead was grandly constructed of stone and timber. At the front of the house, Iceberg roses climbed the verandah posts and bloomed prolifically in summer in resplendent white. The flowers were as pretty and delicate as fine tasteful French lingerie. Then there were Edith’s box hedges, trimmed to perfection, curbing neatly around the white pebble driveway like miniature, elite show-jumping hedges for well-bred horses. The oasis of greenery, set in the heart of yellow fields of wheat stubble and dried pastures, was the focus of many garden
club open days and country-style magazine feature articles and photo essays. The accompanying text in the magazines always proclaimed the Carters were indeed one of
the
most important grazing dynasties in Australia.

Never mind, mused Edith rather bitterly, that her husband’s forebears had more likely stolen the land from its original inhabitants and that the true history of the Carter family was grubby, ugly and sordid. The place was tainted with forgotten and buried memories of shootings, beatings and rapings until the land was laid vacant and bare for the aristocratic Brits. The stylish articles never mentioned that bit, Edith thought. And no one seemed to think on it these days, nor mention it. Particularly the other women with whom Edith mixed. They had their tennis and book clubs, their mah jong and their trips to the city for ‘a bit of a shop’.

Welcome to the world of the blissfully unaware, Edith thought. She wasn’t judging them. She had been that way herself until her children had grown up, the last one gone to university a few years ago, and she now had the time to discover books. Not the ones the ladies read in their book club that were often covered in a shade of grey. But other types of books. Books on humanity, on history, on self-awareness, and lately, after the shock of Malcolm, books on sexuality.

If the Carters wanted to keep a patch of England alive against the western New South Wales heat, and live behind a facade, that was their choice. Facades were obviously their way. So, as a good grazier’s wife, true to her husband’s family facade traditions, Edith thought sarcastically, it was
her calling, her charter, her duty as woman of the house, to keep a neatly mown exquisite green lawn. She didn’t know why her husband complained about the water when it was his family’s idea in the first place to design the garden just so. No amount of arguing from him, even in drought times, would keep Edith from having her lawn.

‘You are overwatering!’ he would shout.

‘You are overgrazing!’ she would shout back. ‘I mulch my garden. Why don’t you mulch your farm? Can’t you see it’s blowing away? Look at my garden soils compared to your cropping soils. Yours are dead. Mine are alive. You are a fool of a farmer. You are a fool of a man.’

‘And you are a pathetic excuse for a woman!’ he would shout again.

She would stand tall in her elegance and beauty, summoning every ounce of her dignity and strength, looking as regal and precise as Cate Blanchett even in her gardening clothes, and say quietly, ‘You know, Malcolm, that garden is all that is left for my pleasure.
All that is left
. Would you deny me that too?’ And her husband’s eyes would slide away with shame and the matter would be closed for another few months, until water fell short again, or Malcolm announced he was going on another one of his ‘ram buying trips’ to the city, and then Edith would turn the sprinklers on flat out and the fighting would start up again.

Of course, as a woman, she had a right to be bitter. But she didn’t want to think on that. Not today. It was such a splendid summer’s day.

A perfect day to rid the roses of aphids and then jump on the mower for a run. It was even warm enough to find the excuse to have a midday gin and tonic with lime and lemon slices. And it was the perfect day for …
that
. She smiled and felt a wave of desire. She set down her pruning shears and adjusted her sunhat, glancing into the pretty gabled garden shed where the Cox 50 Farm Boss ride-on lawnmower was kept. Of course, none of the gardening club members, the magazine writers, nor her husband, suspected the real reason why Edith spent so much time in her garden and, in particular, mowing her lawns on the Cox 50. It was her own secret. And she was about to enjoy it now. Her own private facade. And one that had kept her relatively sane during the turmoil with Malcolm.

With her hands clasped around a giant glass of gin and tonic where moisture beaded on the rim and within, slivers of lemon and lime floated amid silver bubbles, Edith made her way to the shed. She listened to the drone of bees and summer flies busy with living high up in the leaves of the giant oak trees. She took another big gulp of gin and felt the ice-cold liquid enliven her mouth and throat as she opened the shed door and entered.

‘Hello, Randy,’ she said into the shadows. ‘Have you been waiting long for me, darling?’

She drank again, then set the glass down on a potting table. ‘Here I come, my gorgeous one.’ She then swung a leg up and sat on Randy. She pushed his brake pedal in firmly, then turned the key. Instantly the vibrations shuddered through her. The wave of pleasure was instantaneous. ‘Oh,
hello! Randy, you good, good boy. I have so missed you since last week.’

She flicked the ride-on lawnmower into reverse and backed out of the garden shed, Randy revving loudly. She had found the thinner the fabric of her shorts or summer dresses, the better, the faster, the more frequent the pleasure on the Cox ride-on. Malcolm had often muttered that they should get the mower fixed, that it was not running right, never had. It shuddered and rattled and buzzed. But Edith had so far managed to distract him and the mower remained with its malfunctioning pleasurable vibrations. It had become her own movable, mowable machine of pleasure that she hid in the shed, not the bedroom drawer. She loved summertime.

For Edith, wintertime was not as much fun, not so much because her clothing was thicker and the sensation less intense, but because the grass slowed its growth and there was no excuse to mow.

But now, in summer, with the watering coming on each evening from fine, pop-up spray nozzles, Randy was needed often. The moisture and the sunshine meant the lawn was alive and thriving. And so too was Edith, with each juddering turn in front of the house.

She set the mower into gear, revved the throttle, dropped the blades lower with a clunk and then accelerated away, first to the right so the clippings were discharged away from her boxed hedges and the driveway, then she swooped to the left. With the blades set and spinning rapidly, a vortex of rattling encased the mower
and shuddered through Edith’s body. Her vagina suddenly engorged with wetness as she felt the sensations deep within. She shut her eyes momentarily, then turned her face to the sun and upped the revs. Juddering along, the pulse of the engine was translated into waves of sensation. Edith tipped her body forward and, with a deep gasp, quaked to her first orgasm. Gripping the steering wheel, she turned again, while the shivering pleasure tremored through her body. It was a quick one today. She put it down to the light linen dress in the pretty pale blue that she wore.

She could feel her sex deep within her quivering, and blood flowed up to her cheeks. It was a thrilling sensation. She was utterly addicted to her Cox.

She relaxed for a few passes, drew up the blades with a flick of the lever, and let Randy idle for a time as she stopped at the garden shed for another swig of gin. It was hot work. Then she hastily walked back to the kitchen for a quick refill, the feeling of her linen dress moving deliciously over her skin. From the verandah, she surveyed the yards and shearing shed and glanced across to the machinery shed. All was quiet. There were no workmen about. She could hear Randy’s engine purring and whirring in the garden on idle, in neutral. Slugging more gin and tonic, she went back along the flagstone verandah, ducked under the climbing roses, swung up and climbed onto Randy again.

She revved him to seismic intensity and dropped the blades. The moment they engaged she felt their oscillation quivering through the seat, and within her the trembling of desire grew again in her groin. She swept the mower
back onto the path. It had taken her some time to perfect the straight lines even in mid-orgasm, but Edith had the steering motion down pat. She headed down the hill towards the pretty pond. At speed, she could feel herself build and build with the thrill of the mower and was about to quaver to a climax when Randy gave a cough of his engine and died in a plume of smoke.

‘No!’ she cried out. ‘Randy!’ Edith leaped from the Cox and began to inspect the fuel, the lubrication of the parts, the oil, the battery terminals, but Randy was dead. She felt a panic grip her. He couldn’t stop! Not now! She marched back up towards the house, grabbing her gin, and hurried inside. Hastily she clicked on the farm office computer in search of the nearest lawnmower servicing business. She typed in her postcode and waited.

There it was on the screen.
Hamish Redpath, your friendly local Cox serviceman
. Without delay, she called his number.

‘Hello?’ came a warm voice on the line.

‘Hello, Edith Carter speaking. I have an emergency with my Cox.’

Two hours later Edith waited in the shade of the verandah for the serviceman, all the while looking longingly at Randy, who sat immobile and silent halfway down the gentle slope to the pond. Edith blinked tears out of her eyes and chewed sadly on a piece of rye biscuit. She had to eat something to soak up the gin. She knew in her heart she wasn’t crying over a ride-on lawnmower. She was crying over the facade. The twenty-five year facade: of a marriage;
of raising children to a man who was a fake; of presenting prizes as Mr and Mrs Carter at the local show when everything had been a lie. The facade of a happily married couple. The wall of which had come crumbling down late one night when she had stumbled sleepily down the stairs in search of Malcolm.

Right from their wedding night they had slept in single, separate beds, cast apart from each other in the same room. The floor between them felt like a canyon void for Edith. Malcolm had set the rule, and as a young and beautiful, but very naive bride, Edith had obeyed. Malcolm abhorred physical closeness in bed. The night she found out why was so raw in her mind, the memory still twisted a knife into her as if the incident had happened last night.

But it had been three years since the crumbling of the facade, the night when Edith had walked the house like a ghost, in search of her husband. To this day, she wished she hadn’t found him. Not like that. But there he had been, in the farm office, his back to her as he sat upon the office chair, his hand moving rapidly up and down in his lap. His focus was intense on the computer. The images on the screen … of men, naked. Two men, buffed and baby oiled, one behind the other, humping like beasts. Bumfucking while her husband of twenty-five years jerked off.

Edith had backed away, unseen, and gone to lie in her bed. Then the faded years tumbled to the forefront of her mind as she added up the signs. The lack of sex. The distance. The frequent trips to ram sales with very few rams bought. And the cruelty of men who couldn’t tell their
truths to women. The discovery had been her undoing. All these wasted years she had thought it was her. She wasn’t desirable enough. She wasn’t attractive enough. She was the boring one in the bedroom, so her husband never came near.

Edith, from that night, began to pay more attention to the records … of phone bills, tax receipts, of internet trails to find proof so she knew it was true. And then she found it. Her life had unravelled via Google. She had it on the screen in front of her, in concrete proof with several receipts in her hand and a link to a gay bar in Sydney that hired out young men. As it all fell into place, Edith’s world had fallen too.

For the past three years, it had been through the garden that she had revived herself. The life and death of nature helped to keep it in perspective. She would breathe in the scent of her gardenias and remind herself she was a proud woman. A good woman. She could cope with anything. Almost. However, there were days when the sordidness of her husband’s deceit sat heavily on her mind and she found it hard to cope.

She had thought about taking snail bait or an overdose of pills herself. She had swamped herself in self-loathing. But then, always, she had thought of her children, off at university. How would it be for them? She had to find a way to live.

One day, Edith Carter, sitting on the lawnmower silently crying yet again over Malcolm’s secret life, had discovered a way that she could overcome the mire of
despair and devastation that she found herself in. With a phoenix-like fury, Edith had determined to lift herself up and hover above her world. She decided that day that she would not expose her husband’s facade — she would defy it. And as she learned to tip her pelvis forward and rev the engine of the mower just right, she discovered within herself the power and the rampant drive of a wild sexual woman. So what if her awakening had come on a lawnmower? That mower had taught her to fly to the sky and back. Something Malcolm had never done. She giggled a little now. Malcolm’s dirty secret was so much more predictable and boring: ‘Married man secretly gay.’

‘Yawn,’ said Edith out loud. Hers was so much more lewd and thrilling. ‘Mrs Malcolm Carter is having an affair with a lawnmower.’

Laughter spluttered up from Edith, just as the serviceman’s ute rolled into her circular white pebble drive.