6. Farmed Out
The farm is dark and silent. The light I saw comes from a lamp atop a huge empty barn with a corrugated roof. The other buildings slump around me. Some are ancient, some more modern although those are shabbier. There is a thick, fertile smell of hay.
The silence unnerves me, even as I stand panting in the courtyard.
"Hello?" I call.
This is ridiculous -- I am calling like I don't want to disturb anyone out of stupid middle-class politeness.
"Hello! Help me, please!"
It is not clear which, if any of these buildings is a dwelling, or even if there is anyone here. What if it is a smallholding that's managed remotely? I think of Mutant John collapsed in the wood, whether he's still alive. If he were going to die, I could at least have stayed with him --
"HELLO!" I scream.
I'm dazzled with blinding light and clap my hands to my face. When I can see again, a stocky man is pointing a shotgun at me.
Thankfully, having guns pointed at you is quite rare in England -- indeed, this is my first time. In situations like these, it's tempting to think that you will remain calm, but the reality of your life being a finger squeeze away from ending is always more of a shock than you expect, no matter how many Clint Eastwood movies you've seen.
I scream, screw my eyes shut, and put up my hands. Distantly, I am aware I have sunk to my knees.
"Please don't shoot! My friend has collapsed, and I -- please, just call an ambulance."
"Collapsed where?"
His voice is quite high, with a Kentish burr that seems appropriate, given that he is quite clearly a farmer.
I point behind me up the hill.
"Yonder ridge."
Yonder ridge? What the fuck was in that spliff?
I realise then how this must look. A transgender woman has appeared on this man's property in the early hours of the morning wearing nothing but her bra and panties. She is smeared with dirt, is obviously high, and possibly insane as well.
"Please, call the police if you want, but just get a fucking ambulance! My phone is lost, and I... My friend is about sixty and he's had a heart attack."
The farmer is still suspicious.
"What were you doing up there?"
I look down at myself, then back at him.
"Ah," he says.
"Please dial 999, I'm begging you."
"Ambulance won't get up there," he says. "Need the shovel."
"You can't bury him yet -- he might not be dead!"
My voice has taken on a hysterical edge even I find annoying.
The farmer tuts, lowers his shotgun, and pulls out a mobile. I stay on my knees with my arms up, then I hear the beep of a button being pressed three times. He mutters something into the phone, but does not take his eyes off me. Grunting, he tucks the phone away, cracks the shotgun and pulls out the unspent cartridges.
"If this turns out to be bullshit, I don't need a gun to break your fucking neck," he says.
"That's fine," I say.
"Of course it's not fine. Just don't be a bullshitter."
"All right."
"Get up, and don't move. The ambulance will be here in ten minutes, and we need go and get him so we can meet it down here."
Still carrying the shotgun, he strides into the darkness.
There is silence, and the light, which must be on a timer, clicks off. For a moment, I wonder if he's gone back to bed. Then I hear an engine start -- a big vehicle that makes the Harley sound like a toy. More light floods the farm's courtyard, and the biggest tractor I have ever seen crunches towards me. The front end is a shovel the size of a car, which rises off the ground and then lowers again with a smooth pneumatic whine.
I remember I'm still kneeling and get to my feet. The tractor stops in front of me.
"Get in the shovel!"
I scramble into the metal cavity. It's caked with dried mud and hay, which feel unexpectedly warm against my bare feet. It moves, and I grip the front as I'm elevated, although not so high that I obstruct the farmer's view. With astonishing speed, the tractor races across the courtyard, through an open gate, and up the hill. From time to time I point in the direction I ran from, remembering to orient myself with the location of an elm -- the only one I could see when I left the wood. Mutant John is behind it.
The bumpy ride is thrilling, scary, and tense. Will I find a dead man in the wood at the top of this hill? Did fucking me kill him?
The white light washes across the dense front of trees, as if they are defending themselves against us. It would be wise of them, because the farmer rams the shovel with me in it straight through the lower canopy and keeps driving. When he can get no further, he lowers the shovel and I jump out.
I spot Mutant John and rush over to him. He has not moved.
"John!" I scream at him.
His mouth moves. I notice his cock is still out and still hard (how?!). I manage to get it tucked in before the farmer appears beside us.
"We'll have to drag him," he says.
In fact, we manage to carry Mutant John to the shovel and tip him over so he slides down inside. I jump in after him, and the farmer runs around to the cab and leaps into it with surprising grace.
I hold on as the tractor reverses at speed and keeps going backwards down the hill to the courtyard, which is now lit by the flashing blue lights of an ambulance. The tractor turns, presenting me and Mutant John to a pair of medics who, to their credit, make no comment about the bizarre scene. Instead, they get the farmer to lower the shovel so they can check Mutant John inside it, then get a trolley alongside and haul him out.
A transparent plastic oxygen mask is clamped to the magnificent hairy face, and then the medics wheel Mutant John to the ambulance, where they load him up.
"Are you coming?" the female medic says.
"We'll be along," the farmer says before I can decide what to do. "To Maidstone Hospital, is it?"
"That's right."
"See you there."
And his arm settles around my naked waist.
7. Love & Firelight
He lives here alone.
It would be obvious from the state of the farmhouse, part of which is spotless, other parts untidy and dusty, as if his focus is just the areas he has use for. It is an old, old place. I can feel history in the walls, like a hum of voices condensed over time. I expect it to smell damp, but it doesn't, although the walls have that odd bulging quality that suggests there is wattle and daub behind the flaky white plaster, and horsehair in the ceiling. It is one of those dwellings that has been here so long it is almost part of the landscape, a human construct that has finally earned its place.
The kitchen is large, with a big oak table that has two chairs at the end nearest the old butler sink, which is the only part that's lit. He indicates one of the chairs, and as I sit he takes off his coat and settles it over my shoulders. I feel his residual warmth, and the smell of dirty hay. I pull it tight around me.
"Whisky?" he says. "All I got."
He holds a half-empty bottle of Laphroaig.
"Yes please."
He roots in a cupboard, gets down two cut-glass whisky tumblers of different designs, plonks one in front of me and half-fills it with scotch. He puts less in his glass. I pick up my glass, which feels wonderfully heavy, and take a big gulp, then another.
"Oops," I say to the now-empty glass.
I'm a big whisky fan, but it's never slipped down like that before. I didn't even feel the burn. He refills my glass.
"You all right?" he says.
I nod.
"Bit of a shock, that."
He sits and stares at his own glass, then looks up at me.
Now I can see him properly, it's clear that he is about the same age as Mutant John, but hewn from a very different material. I cannot see this man keeling over with a heart attack. I cannot see him keeling over with anything. He is an old-school generational farmer, a tenth son of a tenth son, made to withstand the constant unreason of crop, weather, animal, food politics and the predations of supermarkets that charge more for water than for milk. The elements will not weather this man. He is a human crag who adapts to them instead of being worn away. His face is unexpectedly smooth, but ruddy and with deep creases around the eyes. His hair is probably still thick, only he shaves it to a stubble. His eyes are the dark brown of the soil he works with, and the saddest I have ever seen.
"I'm okay," I say. "How are you?"
He shrugs.
"As you see. What's your name then?"
"Kelly."
He regards me, trying to work out how to ask what he wants without being rude.
"Always been that, has it?"
"Yes," I say. "But only officially about ten years ago."
He nods.
"I'm Gordon."
"Hello Gordon."
"Kelly." He looks me up and down, as if he can see me through his thick coat. I like it -- it makes me feel like livestock. "Good body on you."
"Thank you."
"You do hormones, surgery and that?"
I shake my head. He nods with what might be approval, it's hard to say. We drink in companionable silence, and the whisky joins the dope, the poppers, the sex, the terror and the excitement to form a whole new cocktail of strange possibility.
I think about his arm around my waist.
"You always wear that much makeup?" he says.
I look at him in surprise.
"Is it still on?"
He nods.
"Then, yes. I like makeup."
He drinks again, a larger swallow this time. I wonder if this is what passes for him as nervousness.
"What do you farm?" I say.
"Dairy. Herd's at the other farm -- has been for a while. Got TB around this end again."
I wondered about the absence of cow shit, and what a relief that was given my current state of undress. Then I consider what TB must mean for him.
"Sorry to hear that."
He grunts.
"Time's almost up anyway."
"How so?"
"Subsidies going. American imports coming in. Son's got the other farm. He'll take all this on. Got big ideas. Gonna turn it into some sort of theme park."
"Theme park, eh?" I say.
Gordon nods. I have no way of knowing if he thinks the theme park is a good idea or not. He does not seem bitter, just unhappy. His eyes glisten as he looks up. He waves a stubby finger at the ceiling, as if to include the whole house.
"Was here with the wife, but she's gone now, poor dear. Twelve years." He nods, drinks. "Been no one since her."
"Oh no," I whisper.
He shrugs.
"Lucky to have had what I had. Still, it gets to you. I just farm. The land is always happy to take from you."
I dazedly wish I knew more about agriculture, so I could have a proper conversation with him and not keep saying sorry, as if I pity him, which I don't, because he instinctively commands respect. He charged in and saved Mutant John with maximum urgency and -- shotgun business aside -- very few questions asked. This is a man who understands perspective.
He frowns.
"I probably should have asked this earlier, but where are your clothes?"
"In... ah..."
"Yonder wood?" he says, his eyes creasing as he smiles.
I point at him as if he's won bingo.
"Yonder wood. Also hidden there are Mutant John's Harley Davidson, and a very expensive pair of boots."
"Christ."
"Yes."
"We could go and get them," Gordon says.
He makes no attempt to move.
"We could," I say, as if giving the matter genuine consideration.
"But it's awful dark."
"You won't find my stockings, and I really need those."
"Best stay then."
I smile at him.
"Okay."
He gets up.
"I think the fire's still going in the other room. Would you like to come through?"
I get up, and sway. He comes around and puts his arm around my shoulder.
"You've had a rough night my darlin'," he says. "Best I take care of you now."
"Yes," I say. "That would be best."
Still with his arm around me, he guides me through the dark end of the kitchen and into a hallway that feels heavy with dust and the slow tick of an unseen grandfather clock. Ahead, a closed door is lined with a faint orange glow. He opens it to a large living room, dimly lit by the embers of a dying fire. Ancient sofas line one wall, and on one of them lies the dozing bulk of a huge Labrador. Its great blocky head raises, regards me, and then it reclines back into sleep.
"Your guard dog isn't very efficient," I say.
Gordon chuckles, and he prods the furry bulk.
"Oi, outside you."
The dog eases up with a sigh, and pads out of the living room. Gordon picks up the blanket the dog was lying on and throws it to one side. He gathers sofa cushions and drops them by the fire, which is an open-grate cavern lined with soot-blackened brick. Then he gathers logs and places them on the red embers. Soon, they begin to crackle.
The room is warm, so I slip out of the coat and cross to stand by Gordon. Still on his knees attending to the fire, he turns and regards me between the legs. I can see the smears of dirt on my thighs and belly, which means he can too. He knows how they came to be there. He reaches up, takes my hips in his rough, powerful hands and pulls me down beside him.
"Are you warm enough my darlin'?"
"Well," I whisper, "I can always do with being made a little warmer."
Gordon takes a deep breath, and then another. Despite his attention so far, he is clearly surprised by how deeply he fancies me. I gaze at him, my eyes big in the firelight, and the body he so admired displayed for him. He swallows.
"You want any more whisky, or anything?" he says, unable to keep the husky note of desire from his voice.
Instead of replying, I lie back to rest on my elbow on the cushion, my long, shapely legs stretched out beside him. He looks at them. I rub them together and sigh, because I am incredibly turned on. For the third time tonight I have given myself up to any possibility.
Gordon puts his hand on my thigh, and then with a suddenness that surprises me lunges forward and presses his mouth to mine. It's clumsy -- our teeth clash and he almost knocks me over, but I recover and press myself against him. His arms go around my waist, and my elbow supports our combined weight, which is considerable. I don't move though. I take the weight and concentrate on moving my mouth against Gordon's.
He is nervous now. I can feel his heart through his jumper, and his cock is hard in his trousers. He withdraws, hauls off his jumper and his shabby Fila T-shirt and throws them aside. I lie on my back and he lies on top of me, breathless with excitement. He holds my face, strokes my hair and kisses me again, more gently this time.
His solid body is less hairy then I expected, and the area around his nipples is wonderfully soft. He has a bit of a belly, which I like as it presses against my sleek abs, complementing them. He musses my hair and smells it. Again, I get the sense of being appraised, for milking, sale, or slaughter.
He kisses my mouth again -- he really likes kissing, and I really like being kissed. For a long time, our mouths are locked. Our tongues touch, but they do not entwine, which is enough for now as the fire grows beside us until I feel Gordon's sweat trickle down me and soak into my bra.
"You're hot now, Kelly."
"I'm always hot."
"Maybe you need cooling down."
I shake my head, and he presses his tongue as far into my mouth as he can. I can taste whisky, and smell his sweat, and my heart speeds up again as I spread my legs and then wrap them around his waist, my toes pointed.
He kisses me and holds my face, and smooths my hair, and kisses my fringe and then my mouth, staring at me as if he cannot believe that I am in his arms, and that he wants me. This surprise is especially delightful. A new world has opened for Gordon tonight. He will be less alone now.
But for now I am his first, the trans-erotic pioneer, the one against whom all others will be compared. Out of the magical wood I came, with my drama and my thrilling tales of outrage and woe. Now he can enjoy my big brown eyes, my full mouth, and be astonished at the eerie press of Big Clit against his own intimacy.
He relaxes as I sense him realise how the familiarity of that touch is nothing to be scared of. The rules he followed are not so strict or meaningful after all as he breathes in the scent of my sweat and the tang of forbidden substances working their way out of my pores.
He knows I am a bad girl and a slut. He knows I am trouble -- I have caused him enough tonight. And yet how worth it I am as his weight presses down on my breasts, and he feels how my strength is out of all proportion to my size. Did he ever imagine it would be like this?
There is something I want to say to him even as he tries to devour me mouth-first. It is always a risky thing to say, for many reasons, not the least of which being that it is so overwhelming -- as much responsibility as promise. And yet I want to say it to him with an urgency that feels like the need to come. We could carry on kissing like this, of course we could, but he might get carried away in the wrong direction, and there is much I've got to share with him.
My lipstick is all kissed off -- thank God I used peach tonight or I would look like a satiated vampire, and I can't have that. There is no stubble on my face or anywhere else except my brows and head -- I had it all zapped off years ago. Gordon is stubbly though. I doubt he has shaved since Sunday and it's Tuesday now. I like that burn. It's not like I'm going to be seeing anyone else tonight, and I enjoy the way a man makes his mark on me when he has me like this. Gordon will see my face become as red as his, as if we are blending, which of course we are. He is fit -- not in a gym-based manner as I am but in a way that enables him to manage cattle and the heavy machinery of a farm every day without stopping until it's done. And yet his breath is getting heavy and I fear I am beginning to wear him out. When he pauses for breath, eyes bright with fire and lust, I place my hands on his cheeks, my touch gentle.
And then I say it.
"Do what you want."
His eyes widen. I lie in his arms, sultry and heavy-lipped, my eyes lazy with sexual hunger as he studies me as if the meaning of life is hidden somewhere in my face, my hair, my unfathomable body. He stops as if daring himself, then he gets up. He still has his trousers on and he undoes them as I get to my knees and watch him, my pouty expression unchanged. He pulls them down, along with some ancient Y-fronts, which he tears at until they rip and then he throws them on the fire.
His cock is stubby, like his fingers, and his pubic hair unusually long, like Mutant John's beard, only brown instead of grey. The cock is uncut, and its head pulses in and out of its sheath. It smells of chestnuts.
I have it in my mouth before he can decide what to do, and he screams. I expect him to come, but he doesn't. I don't know what he will do -- he might push me away or hit me. He might not want to do that, it could well simply be instinct. I don't care though. He will have to dislocate my jaw to get me off.
He shouts, and leans back in order to get his powerful cock further in, as if he has suddenly discovered a shocking pride in it. His hands flutter around my head and his chest heaves.
And then he strokes my ears.
"Oh God," he sighs.
No one really bothers with my ears. They are quite large and pointy, elfin almost, with small lobes I've got pierced with twenty mil gold hoop sleepers. Gordon loves them though. He makes this odd hiccupping sound as he brushes the little curtains of my bob aside so he can get at the ear tips, and then he holds them, pinching tight. I don't mind, although it's not comfortable, and not one my usual erogenous zones. Even when I take him deep into my throat and leave him there to thrust as he will he seems distracted. His focus is my ears. How lovely.
I have something of a Star Trek Vulcan look. It's to do with the length of my face, the shape of my eyes, and of course the shiny black bob. Gordon's attention feels like a validation of that. Even the pain as he pinches my ears doesn't bother me. It's distracting, but the shuddering breaths he takes more than compensate.r"