Fertile Valley ch. 8-9

8 Gone Fishing

I sat on a big rock and cast a line into the slow stream, watching as the bobber drifted with the current. “Have a seat next to me, buddy,” I told my dog, and he happily took the suggestion, plopping down beside me with no hint of a complaint.

When it became clear that just because I heard a fairy song it didn’t mean I would be instantly making a catch, I put one arm around the pooch and lay on my back while my other hand minded the fishing pole. Fierce followed my lead, resting his head on my chest.

“There’s something magical about this place, even beyond the obvious stuff,” I noted, talking more to myself than the dog, but he was a good listener. “I feel different out here. Back in the city, I had bad habits and couldn’t go an hour without thinking about when I might get laid next—but here?” I shook my head. “I’m like a whole different person.”

I had no clue just why that was—well, actually a clue was all I had. The Harvest Goddess and her Harvest Fairy mentioned that there was nothing wrong with me—that I was destined to be here, so of course I would be unhappy elsewhere. What I mistook for a sex addiction only manifested because I wasn’t making use of the Harvest Goddess’s elves like I should have been my whole adult life.

I kind of rejected the idea—of having some innate purpose. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t big on the whole predestined fate concept, but I had to admit, I was questioning a lot of previously held beliefs about how the world worked all of a sudden.

If there were goddesses out there, then how many? Where? Did that mean there were other magical creatures? I already confirmed elves and fairies. Did it end with them, or was there even more for me to encounter someday? There were ‘dark powers’ lurking in the mine, I guess, whatever that meant. More secrets to unravel at a later date.

And then there was my so-called mission.

But before I could reflect on that, I felt a tug on my fishing pole. I shot up straight and started reeling it in, and the fish did give a bit of a fight, but I managed to pull in the line. As the fish emerged from the water, some kind of trout maybe, Fierce started woofing excitedly. Woof! Woof! 

His tail wagged with adorable vigor as I pulled in the fish. Part of me worried he’d snatch it off the line, but he didn’t. He plopped into a gentlemanly seated position and looked at me, his tongue flopping out, accompanied by happy panting sounds.

Nothing happened. My face screwed up in puzzlement, but remained properly screwed up when I recalled the lyrics of the song. I had been so distracted by the “inside us spill” part that I glossed over the worst portion.

“Shit. I need to bite this fish.” Wincing, I pouted a bit as I stared at the flopping thing and…yep. I took a bite and swallowed a chunk. “Gross.”

Woof.

And then I was greeted to a sight that almost made me say “Woof”. Three red-clothed elves with fairy wings, each woman no bigger than my forearm, emerged explosively with a beam of light out of the fish’s new wound. The fish still flopped on the line a little, grossing me out. Even so, I was ready to move on. I squinted as I looked at the new arrivals and noted that these elves—or fairies—actually had wings. They started fluttering around my head, cheering happily, and I saw a message display on a transparent screen in front of my face.

Level 2 Achieved! Choose a perk!

• Master Baiter – Bait is twice as effective at attracting fish as before.

• Fishmonger – Eating fish restores more stamina than usual.

Well, that was interesting. “Fishmonger, please?” I said, kind of like a question. I wasn’t exactly sure how to do this, but to my relief, it worked out just fine.

Perk: Fishmonger taken! Congratulations! 

Reminder: Be sure to have lots of sex!

My brow arched at that message, not quite sure what it had to do with fishing, but I mouthed, “Okay” and turned my attention to the three buzzing fairies. “So you’re more Harvest Fairies?”

“Fertility Pixies!” they squeaked in perfect unison. 

“I’m Bloomy!

“I’m Blossomelle!”

“I’m…also named Blossomelle! Shut up! It’s a common name!” the third one said, clearly a bit defensive about the whole thing.

And then, altogether again, “Thank you for saving us!”

“No problem,” I chuckled. “Well, off you go. Be free, little pixie-thingies.”

They puffed out their cheeks in complaint, crossing their arms all at once. “Not a chance, big boy,” Blossomelle 1 huffed. “Not until you ravage us.”

I blinked, then looked over at my dog uncomfortably. “Why don’t you, uh, go for a walk and come back here in a few minutes, bud.”

Woof!

I turned my attention back on the tiny pixies as Fierce Boy started chasing a butterfly. “Logistically speaking, that seems kind of difficult,” I noted carefully. “Unless you can do the thing that Apple did and go temporarily human-sized.”

Bloomy giggled sweetly, her voice carrying a delightfully innocent musical lilt. “Nope! Just use us as cocksleeves!”

My brow furrowed. “Won’t that kill you? Like, break you from the inside?”

Blossomelle 2 chirped a clarification in her innocent voice. “We’re magical creatures! We have no internal organs, skeletal structures, or anything of that nature! We are designed to be taken by the Goddess’s chosen! Cumming inside us is good for your health and will make you stronger!”

“Just remember to do it every day!” the other Blossomelle added.

I just smiled dumbly, a look of ‘What the fuck is my life right now?’ My shoulders bounced in defeat, and I dutifully unzipped my pants. Listen—judge me all you want, but who was I to refuse the one-two punch combo of the Harvest Goddess’s will and my own curiosity?

The three fairies were each roughly the size of my arm from the elbow to the palm, so this was certainly going to be weird. Before I knew it, they all sat in my lap and grabbed different parts of my member; Blossomelle 1 took the balls and started gently kneading them, while Blossomelle 2 handled the shaft, and Bloomy massaged the tip of my manhood, doing the best she could. Still, I found her efforts the most awkward, so I decided to use her to entertain my curiosity instead.

I reached out and plucked her off my lap, holding her like I was King Kong and she was Ann Darrow. She let out a tiny yelp of surprise, but then giggled, her body glowing at my touch. “Ohhh! What are you going to do to me?”

I held her in front of my face and angled her up a bit so that her crotch was facing me. With two fingers, I peeled her dress off, leaving the petite fairy entirely nude. She was cute for sure, with a bob cut hairstyle and a tiny matching tuft of pubes atop her mons. “I’m going to just help myself for a moment here,” I muttered. “Bon appetit.”

I licked between her legs, my tongue dragging along both thighs until reaching her crotch. The flavor of her pussy took me by surprise—it was fruity, like a purple grape or something similar, but her slit was so small that it only covered a fraction of my tongue’s surface area. It was easy to cover the whole thing in a single lick, so I didn’t have to use a hell of a lot of technique to get her off. She squirmed in my grasp and fondled her tits as I licked her pussy heatedly, each movement of my tongue growing more precise.

“Oh, by the Harvest Tree’s glory!” she whimpered. “You got my little pixie pussy all fucked up, Pete! Give me the cummies A.S.A.F.P.! Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhh!” If I wasn’t mistaken, that was a climax—and quite an easy one.

The other two pixies stared up at their friend jealously as they continued to work my balls and shaft. “No frickin’ fair! Why is she first?”

“Someone had to be,” the other sighed with a shrug.

“Well, in that case, I’m just going to treat myself, too, if it’s all the same,” Blossomelle 1 huffed impatiently. She stood in my lap, her legs wide, and I felt her perfectly petite pixie pussy press against my penis, parting with improbable ease to swallow up my dick.

With Bloomy gone limp in recovery mode, I had to pull her away from my lips for a moment to see the spectacle for myself more clearly. My dick somehow fit inside Blossomelle 1 against all odds, but to say it was a tight squeeze would be a disservice to the institution of human language. It managed to be both a perfect, effortless insertion and the snuggest fit imaginable—pure magical paradox.

Her pixie tummy bulged visibly to accommodate me, and it almost looked like it had to be excruciatingly painful—except there was that indecent, horny look on her face. “Awww shit, baby, this is the cock I was made for,” Blossomelle 1 moaned. “Pete, big guy. Hot stuff. Just grab me around the midsection and use me like a pocket pussy.” She lazily made the gesture with her miniature hands as her eyes rolled back in her head.

Part of me wondered how she even knew what a pocket pussy was, but I didn’t really have the mental wherewithal or spiritual bandwidth to ask for the answer.

Bloomy and I made eye contact. She shrugged, her cheeks still red, drool dribbling down her chin as she still tried to bounce back from the pleasure I’d been very recently giving her. “You aren’t leaving here until you cum in us all, so you might as well hop to it, pal.”

I did not need to be told twice. Well, technically, with Bloomy sounding off, that was twice. Correction: I did not need to be told three times. I repositioned Bloomy so that she was wrapped around my face, her pussy pressed against my lips. She got on my wavelength and kept herself in place by fluttering her wings and locking her heels behind my head the best she could given her size.

And then I grabbed Blossomelle 1, gripping her slim body like a sex toy, and started wildly jerking her up and down my length. My hand to God, I never imagined the sort of sounds that could arrive from such a situation, but they were hefty auditory deposits in the spank bank, that’s for sure. “AAAooooAAAooooAAAooo!” she cried out with each stroke, her tiny pixie pussy clenching lovingly around me. Every few strokes, she would make a squeaking sound that I was afraid would summon Fierce Boy.

Blossomelle 2 looked up at me with a pout, abandoning her task of playing with my balls. I could tell she felt rather neglected, and I couldn’t blame her. With my one free hand, though, I reached down and grabbed her, placing her on top of Bloomy, who was sort of floating horizontally in front of my face with her pixiehood pressed against my mouth. With this new arrangement, Blossomelle 2 was right on top of her, and they wasted no time in getting tangled up in each other’s arms and starting to kiss while I pleasured them both. My tongue was like meat in a sandwich made with pixie cunt bread.

If Bloomy’s pussy tasted like grapes, then Blossomelle 2’s tasted like apples glazed in honey—oh, and there was indeed a glaze. Both girls climaxed at roughly the same time, squirting me in the eyes and chin with fairy-cutie ejaculate. I accepted it happily—it was, after all, my destiny or something.

Meanwhile, my pixie pocket pussy had cum so many times by now that I was starting to get concerned. I needed to finish fast or I’d have to one day tag my memoir as ‘mindbreak’ smut. I let up a bit on the attack with Bloomy and Blossomelle 2 and set them down, removing that distraction so I could focus on my own pleasure—and that did the trick.

I filled that fairy with so much cum that I found myself relieved it didn’t leak out of places it shouldn’t.

“Pete! Pete! Ohhh I’m more jizz than pixie now!” she moaned. “Ladies, fucking shit! You have to—oof!—try this! It’s the—ah!—the best!”

And indeed, they got their turn. And when I was finished some time later, I lay on my back with the three girls sprawling out on my chest. I breathed out a sigh of contentment as a little RPG HUD appeared in front of my face.

Congratulations! You have already freed and unlocked the services of 1 Harvest Fairy and 3 Fertility Pixies. Be sure to rescue more of them and have sex with them regularly to keep them happy!

My brow furrowed. “Say, Blossomelle?” I grunted.

“Yeah?” both of them replied in unison.

“How many Fertility Pixies are there for me to save?”

“Ohh—twelve, I suppose. Three for each Harvest Fairy!” Blossomelle 1 explained. “Please find our princess next!”

I gulped. “And, speaking for your peers as best you can, when the System tells me to ‘fuck them regularly’, what would you consider an ideal frequency?”

The three pixies looked at each other and shrugged. “I figure no more than three times a day should be necessary,” Bloomy guessed.

Here lies Pete, I thought to myself, fucked by fairies into a dry, empty shell. At this rate, we should double-book Grandpa’s and my funerals.

Bloomy giggled as she noticed the pensive, worried look on my face. “Oh, relax,” she said. “Time freezes when you’re with us, and once we’re gone, you’ll have more energy, not less.”

“Ah! Was he afraid for a second?!” Blossomelle 2 giggled. “So funny! How cute! Don’t worry, Pete—you’re the Chosen of the Harvest Goddess! You’ve got this!” She shot me a wink and a thumbs up that would have been super charming if I could get the mental picture of her O-face out of my head.

“I see,” I muttered, resting on my arms, putting them behind my head as an improvised pillow. “Well, I guess that changes things.”

“Now!” Blossomelle 1 giggled. “Why don’t you summon big sister Apple here and we can all go for one more round?”

I blinked. “Somehow I still feel afraid.”

The three of them leaned back in unison, rolling their eyes and crossing their arms together. “You’ll be fiiiine.”

9 A Spring in My Step

Fierce Boy and I made a morning of exploring the valley. I stripped branches from a few trees, knowing that the first thing I’d want to do would be to fuel my grandpa’s fireplace once I inherited the farm. It was still brisk outside, though Spring was already settling in, and Grandpa’s simple home didn’t have much in the way of modern comforts. I doubted that had changed since I left.

Fierce Boy also had a nose for berries and other interesting forageable items. As I walked with my axe slung over my shoulder, feeling kind of manly from the posture, my sweet goldendoodle would occasionally dart off after sniffing the ground, but he never went far. Always, he ended up with his ass in the air and nose buried in the dirt, his tail wagging with endearing exuberance.

“What have you found now, bud?” I asked. The answer was a patch of blackberry bushes I remembered from my childhood, but they were out of season until at least mid-June. For now, they were mostly lifeless, but Fierce seemed to know what it was and wanted me to know as well. 

He also found some mushrooms, which grew in surprising quantities throughout the valley, often appearing in fairy rings. I had no idea if those fairy rings held any mystical quality, but my balls had never been so drained, so I steered clear just in case.

Woof! Woof!

“Yeah, no, we’re going to give that patch a wide berth, buddy,” I muttered. “Last thing I need right now is another mob of lustful pixies.”

Fierce whimpered a bit in disappointment but took his own initiative, picking some mushrooms from the ground gingerly and bringing them to me. I plucked them out of his mouth and laughed. “Alright, alright.” I checked my watch real quick, my wrist now facing me. “We’d better keep moving. Funeral’s already tomorrow, so we’d better make today productive.

At the mention of the funeral, Fierce whined again, this time even more sadly. He lowered his head, his lower jaw trembling. Seeing this, I crouched down.

“Damn. You really are smart. There is no way you’re just a normal dog.”

Woof!

I patted him on the head and stood back up. “Well, I won’t take you for granted. You just find a way to tell me what you need. I saw some videos on the internet where people had buttons that their dogs could press that would play audio of some words that would help them form simple sentences. I don’t know if we need that, but maybe I could get you a mat printed with some pictures and you could tap what you wanted.”

Fierce cocked his head at me, and I realized I had finally lost him. The cute, innocent look of confusion made me laugh. Before I knew it, I was squatting down to pet him some more. He rolled onto his back to receive belly rubs of the highest caliber.

We passed by Mineral Spring on our way back, and I wouldn’t have even glanced over at it—but I heard singing. My buttcheeks clenched with a wish of self-preservation as my dick and balls remembered all the copious amounts of sex I’d had this morning already. At this rate, my penis would be coughing up dust before too long. Still—if there was another Harvest Fairy or a stray Fertility Pixie to rescue, it was literally my duty to oblige.

But the voice I heard now was deeper. Not deep by any means, still very feminine, but certainly deeper than the comically squeaky pixies and Apple. And the tune…

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes,

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes,

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain,

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain,

She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes…

All the other Harvest Fairy or Pixie songs I’d heard thus far contained some kind of coded instructions. This was just a cringey old folk song, sung with a bit of rural flair. 

Still, I had to be sure. Recalling the episode with the pixies, I frowned and looked at my dog. “Why don’t you see if you can gather some more of those mushrooms, bud? I’m going to check this out. If you hear lady-moans, hang back and give pops some privacy, alright?”

Woof!

I followed the voice to the Spring, not sure what exactly I expected to find. Probably a woman fishing or wading in the water? My brain didn’t really have time to weigh all the possibilities. Instead, I spotted a country girl with curly red pigtails skinny dipping by herself.

Darlene. I recognized her immediately. She was Missy’s friend, sort of a classic country chick. She used to spend all her time in the summer helping us out on the farm. When she wasn’t helping us, she was organizing random collections—toys, rocks, feathers, photos of various scenic spots in town, taxidermied bugs…you name it, she had a collection for it. 

And she was naked. Right in front of me. So far, she hadn’t spotted me yet, and I hadn’t seen anything spicy because of the water level, so the right time to turn around and walk away was now.

So, I did. Or, I started to. But then—

“Wait! Who’s there?! Is that you, Missy?”

“I didn’t see anything,” I shouted out, freezing after that, still with my back to her.

She gasped as she must have finally spotted me between the trees. “Who the hell are you?!”

I raised a hand but didn’t turn around. “Name’s Pete. Not sure you remember me. I used to come by in the Summers when I was a kid until I was partway through college. You were probably fifteen or sixteen last time I saw you, around eight years ago.”

“Prodigal Pete?!” she gasped. Now there was a nickname I instantly hated. “Hold on, don’t go! I wanna talk!”

“But…you’re naked,” I muttered.

She sighed. “Hang on, let me dry off and put a towel on.” There was a short pause, in which time I assumed she was probably starting to do just that, but apparently I was wrong because she added, “Oooor we could just even things up. You could hop in the Spring with me, and since we’d both be naked, it ain’t no biggie, right?”

My brow crinkled as I tried to puzzle that one out. “That just sounds untenably horny to me. No judgment, though, I can relate.”

“So relate your way into the Spring, big guy.”

“I’d rather we go with the towel option, honestly. Isn’t it chilly in there? It’s the middle of March. I’m wearing a jacket.”

She sighed and told me to turn around. I ended up staring at a beehive hanging off a distant tree for a few seconds until she finally called my name again. “Alright, Prodigal Pete. My spicy bits are all regrettably hidden away.”

I chuckled at her amusing phrasing and turned around. Darlene was a freckle-faced redhead with green eyes and curly pigtails. She was skinnier than Missy and Queenie. Queenie had the body of an average chick that was just a bit too hot to ignore, with a respectable bosom and nice hips, but still a nice trim waistline to boot. Missy had the body of an instagram fitness guru—’nuff said. Darlene, on the other hand, was a bit of a waif—petite and small-chested, but very cute. Her rare, clear complexion did her some favors, as did her huge, expressive eyes.

Those big eyes looked me over appraisingly. “You got hot.”

I laughed at that. “Thank you. You got aggressive.”

She blushed a little but didn’t back down. “Ain’t  a lot of good-looking guys come visiting in the valley, ‘specially not ones I’ve got a long history of crushin’ on. Can’t afford to beat around the bush. You come for your grandpa’s funeral then, I take it?”

I nodded. “Yep. That’s what prompted the trip. Did you know him well?”

“Everyone did,” she sighed, and I detected more than mere sadness mixed into her tone. It was like the reminder of his death was some great burden she now felt weighed down by. “You’ll get to see everyone in town at his funeral, I reckon. I guess you just came to pick up your millions and go, right?”

I blinked at that, my brow furrowing. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Your inheritance, I mean. Your gramps was loaded as fuck,” she giggled. “He was the lifeblood of this town.”

This was news to me. “Grandpa was…loaded?”

“It’ll fuck Liz Luna’s butt so bad when you just take all that cash and run, but I can’t say I blame you. It’s a bit dickish, but—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I grunted, cutting her off. If what she was saying was true, oodles of cash wouldn’t change that in any case. I raised my hand pleadingly as her eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t think of me like that, Red. I’m here to start fresh. I regret that I didn’t find the reason to come here sooner. But now that I’m here, I’m here for good.”

Darlene’s cheeks blushed so red they almost blended in with her hair. She absent-mindedly started playing with her pigtails. “You called me Red. That’s the old nickname you and your gramps used to call me.”

I chuckled at that. I hadn’t even realized it when I said it, but she was right. I fell right back into the old habit. “Sorry about that, we’re all grown up now. I can just call you by your name,” I offered.

“No, it’s fine…but…y-you’re really staying?!”

I nodded. “Yep. City life wasn’t worth it. I wish I’d moved here years ago.”

“Then we’re saved,” she said, smiling weakly, but hopefully. She let out a little sigh. “If someone’s really taking over the farm this soon—someone with blood and stakes in the survival of our town—things could really turn around. You’ll be a hero.”

I chuckled at that. “I’ll do my best.” It suddenly occurred to me that at the distance we were from one another, I could see she did indeed have those hearts in her eyes, but couldn't make out their color with certainty. If I had to guess, it was probably yellow based on context clues. 

“Shit, I guess that means it’ll be weird if we just hook up, huh?”

“How do you figure?” I asked, genuinely caught off guard by the declaration.

“Well, obviously you wanna fuck me cuz I’m super cute,” she said, winking at me. “And obviously I wanna fuck you cuz you’re a handsome guy and, incidentally, also the first one who rolled into town in years. But if we do, what do you think happens next?”

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

She rolled her eyes but smirked playfully. “Well, Queenie will kill me, that’s for sure. Between you and me I don’t think she ever got over you, even after having a kid. And Missy, who’s my best friend and has been dreaming about finding a husband since we were little girls, will be royally pissed that I tainted the first bachelor I saw. And Liz Luna, well—she’s crazy.”

“How so?” I asked. I saw her point with the others, but Mayor Luna had always been warm, collected, and reasonable as long as I knew her. I didn’t think she’d consider who I had sex with to be any of her business.

“She’s obsessed with the idea of the town’s survival. I don’t know if it’s even possible at this point.” Her eyes narrowed. “I could say more, but it isn’t my place, I guess.”

I arched a quizzical brow. “Is this about the Harvest Goddess, by chance?”

Darlene’s eyes shot open in shock. “Didn’t think I’d hear you say her name in this conversation. What do you know about her? Besides the obvious stuff, I mean?”

I looked both ways like a good kid crossing the street before taking one more step toward the spring, her staring at me from the other side. “Can I use you as a sort of sounding-board? Can I trust you?”

Her eyes shot open and she nodded. “Uh, sure.”

“You have to promise me you won’t repeat any of this until I know for certain how people are going to react. I just got here and I don’t want to fuck it up with folks calling me crazy or manipulative or having to face unwelcome opinions.”

Darlene’s eyes only widened further. “She appeared to you, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Darlene, I really shouldn’t be saying this, but I have to tell someone. I have had…the craziest time since arriving here. I literally just fucked three pixies.”

Her head cocked. “Huh?”

“Bear with me.” I told her everything that had happened since I arrived—even things I shouldn’t. Maybe it was the fact that she was standing in just a towel and had been so forthright with me about her own thoughts. I told her about the Harvest Goddess, the Harvest Fairies and my Three Quests. Her mouth dropped open further with each passing revelation. I became quickly attached to that look on her face, too, because I could tell she believed every word.

And then I dropped the big bomb. “And I found out not long after I got here—I have a daughter.”

That’s the one thing out of all the fairy-fucking, video gamey nonsense that elicited a spoken reply out of her and made her jump. “Wait, what?! WHAT?! What the FUCK!” Darlene’s face scrunched up in contemplation, then popped in disbelief. “You’re telling me that Queenie Luna’s kid is your daughter?! Little Kylie Ann?! Are you sure or are you guessing?!”

“I’m sure,” I said. “Queenie told me the second I arrived, basically. She felt so guilty, she cried.”

“Whoa. This is fucking heavy,” she muttered. “Goddamn, Queenie would really kill me if we so much as made out right now.”

“Except that you heard my quest,” I pointed out. “I have to take at least five wives from town and baby them up.”

Darlene started counting girls off on her fingers. “Well let’s see, there’s Queenie, obviously Missy will be on board, as for me…” Her voice trailed off a moment before smirking. “I mean, at the very least you need two more. The town is full of single beauties, even some absolute milfs, so you’ll be fine.”

My face tightened. “Are you sure you’re willing to submit your name to the list of eligible bachelorettes now that you know my intentions?”

She shrugged. “Honestly, the fact that I know what you’re up to and that it’s a quest to save our village that might actually bear fruit—I’m seriously considering it. But I need to be sure that we have some chemistry. I ain’t ending up concubine to some farmer boy wannabe I can’t even fall in love with.”

I laughed at the way she phrased it. “That’s more than fair.”

“But you’re going for Queenie and Missy, right?”

I shrugged. “Queenie is already the mother of my child, so that simplifies the decision. To be honest, though, I’m still kind of pissed that she kept Kylie Ann from me for this long.”

“Yeah, that’s fucked up,” Darlene agreed, frowning. “That bitch.”

I glowered at her. “Hey now. No need for that.”

She smirked. “I knew it. You’re still protective of her. Maybe because she’s the mother of your brat, or maybe because you’ve always cared about her. In my opinion, you and her should have always ended up together, so you’d be a fucking dumbass to leave her hanging now that you have the chance to set things right.”

I knew she had a point but I didn’t give voice to my agreement. I cleared my throat. “As for Missy, I don’t really know her, but I’d like to. When I think of the two of you growing up, you were acne covered, braces-wearing teens. I wasn’t into either of you in the least, but if Missy is a good woman and wants to get married and stay in town, I suppose I can…consider it.”

“Consider what she can do with those thighs,” Darlene teased. “She’s super fit and flexy. She bakes, too. God, you’d be so stupid to ignore her. I’m not even worried about it. She won’t let you ignore her in any case.”

I laughed. “Hey, if she throws herself at me, so much the better. Makes my job easier.”

Darlene grinned. “This feels kind of naughty. Like I’m your co-conspirator.”

I lifted my brows. “I guess you are.”

She gestured to a pile of clothes on the ground, neatly folded. “I should really get dressed and head back. But—since you told me your secret, I’ll let you watch me change.”

“No, don’t do that,” I grunted, my face going serious.

She pouted. “Why not?”

“Because I’ll end up fucking your brains out, and I’ve already had too much sex for one morning.”

Darlene stomped her foot. “But that was the whole idea!”

“Another time,” I told her, laughing even more. “Once I’m all situated in my grandpa’s farmhouse, drop by for some coffee or something.”

“Can I get your cell number so we can coordinate that?” she asked, her eyes glimmering with mischief.

“Absolutely.”

I gave Darlene my number and she did a test text to make sure she inputted it correctly. She did. The message went through, and the next thing she did was pull her towel away from her chest for a moment and snap a selfie of her boobs, which she promptly sent to me. “There you go,” she said. “They aren’t much, but they’re titties.”

“It takes all kinds,” I wisely declared, nodding my approval as I admired the image. “Thanks for this. I’ll use it wisely.”

She smirked at me and dropped the towel. “Oopsie. Looks like it fell off.”

I turned my back on her, not wanting to drink in the sight of her nudity too completely before I had the chance to unwrap the present myself under the right conditions. “You won’t win this time,” I told her. “But nice try.”

“It was worth a shot,” she groaned in disappointment. “What’s a country girl have to do to get a city boy to notice her?”

I coughed as I tried to withhold some reaction to that. “Oh, believe me, you’ve been noticed.”

I called Fierce Boy back to me and headed back through the farm. As I strolled through, I saw that part of the field had indeed been cleared, if only a little, so Apple at least got some work done. At the moment, however, she was nowhere to be seen, probably busy frolicking with the pixies in a grove somewhere.

Who I did see was Liz Luna, the town mayor and Queenie’s mom, talking with two lawyer-looking dudes in dark gray suits with blue ties that matched. She was putting on sunglasses when one of them spotted me and nodded, nudging his counterpart as I trekked across the property. “Hey, you!” he shouted. “This is private property!”

I saw Liz take notice of me and wave me over as she started explaining who I was to the besuited gentlemen. With a sigh, I obliged, figuring it wouldn’t look good for me to follow my desire to dart off rather than engage. “Good morning, everyone,” I said. “Liz, good to see you. We keep missing each other since I arrived in town.”

I joined her and she beamed at me, then pinched my cheek affectionately before turning back to the other men. “This is Peter Busch-McGinley. He’s the main recurring name on that will you’re holding, Mr. Crumm.”

The lawyer with a receding hairline smiled a plastic smile and rubbed his palms together. “My mistake. I was just trying to make sure we didn’t have any looters again.”

“Again?” I asked.

“A lot of your grandpa’s valuables were stolen while he was hospitalized,” Liz sighed, looking sad. “Pete, I’m sure you know, but you’re his main inheritor, being his next of kin. I’m sorry to say that a lot of the furniture and personal items you remember from your boyhood are gone.”

I frowned to hear that. “Who would do something like that? Looting the house of an old man at death’s door?”

“We don’t know for sure,” the other lawyer said. “Sorry, we should introduce ourselves as well. I’m John Henrikson, and this is my associate, Abe Crumm. We’re from Henrikson, Ford, and Hartley Law Firm. We’re handling your grandfather’s estate. We’re going to definitely get acquainted tomorrow in more detail as you’re going to have hundreds of signatures to handle.”

“I hope you weren’t planning on doing much after the funeral aside from signing papers,” Crumm commented with a smirk. “What a relief you actually came. If you hadn’t, we’d have had to hunt you down in the city.”

I nodded at that, then turned to Liz. “I stopped by your house last night, Mrs. Luna. Queenie found me parked outside and brought me in.”

Her eyes widened to saucers. “I heard. Seeing that adorably undersized yellow accessory on your back, I guess she introduced you to you-know-who?” Liz whispered as though the other men couldn’t hear her.

I chuckled at that, unable to stop myself from grinning, if only for a moment. “Yeah. She did. That was a bit of a mindfuck, if you’ll pardon my French.”

She jabbed me in the chest. “I most certainly will not. Keep that mouth clean around my daughter and granddaughter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I snickered teasingly. “Sorry.”

Her stern look melted into a smile, and she wrapped her arms around me. “Welcome back. We all missed you terribly.”

I hugged her back, avoiding the gazes of the lawyers as much as possible. “I missed you all too, believe me. Even when I thought I’d forgotten, I’d really been missing you and this place the whole time.”

And then she whispered, her lips brushing against my ear for just a moment. She smelled like lavender body wash—and maybe a hint of actual lavender. It was nice, but it just made me want to see Queenie again. “I’m not surprised to hear that. You belong here. And now, I believe you know why.” Before I could question that, she pulled back, amended her expression into a simpler smile, then patted me on the chest before turning her gaze back to the suits in front of us. “Anyway, gentlemen, let’s take one last look at the estate and make sure we strike anything missing from the property off of the list so it can be accounted for when you read the will tomorrow.”

They left me standing there with some polite goodbyes, and Liz bent down to pet Fierce once before leaving. I watched her go, and…it was nice.

The thing was, Liz Luna was a gorgeous woman in her own right. She had Queenie when she was fifteen or sixteen, at least from what I’d heard, so she always was a young mom. But there was something weird about it now that I looked at her. As she walked away, I realized that she scarcely seemed any older than she did the last time I saw her.

No…that wasn’t it. She definitely looked more mature. Her body was fuller, having filled out in the best ways a woman’s body could with age. But the wrinkles and flaws that were supposed to come to a woman in her mid-forties hadn’t touched her at all. To be fair, she was hardly the only hot chick in her forties that I’d met. In the city, I’d been with plenty of older housewives. But there was something uniquely perfect about Liz—something that had always been there, but that maybe I’d been too young to appreciate the last time I was here.

I watched her walk away, eyes widening a bit. Her hair was noticeably different from her daughter’s, being light brown rather than golden blonde. She had the waviness of Kylie Ann’s hair, and she wore it down with a bandana around her head that gave her a cool country look.

Today she wore overalls and a frilled blouse underneath. Her body, to put it in a gentle way, was voluptuous, and it was impossible not to notice. Queenie looked very much like a younger version of her mother, both of them with hourglass figures, but there was just something about an older woman that was different. Perhaps it was the aura of confidence they carried, or the extra experience they had hidden away.  Where Queenie’s body had only recently made a down-payment on drop dead gorgeous, Liz’s assets had fully matured and she’d recently cashed in.

Metaphors aside, this was my brain’s way of telling me that Liz somehow had a juicier ass.

Even considering my mission, Queenie’s mom wasn’t really my type, and dating her while dating Queenie and raising our daughter would be a line I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross. Besides, I couldn’t imagine Queenie would be down for a mother-daughter double whopper, in any case. I already had a couple potential prospects and I really didn’t need to cause myself extra problems by seeking out the forbidden fruit.

But if such a fruit were to be offered freely…

“I need to stop thinking of women as food,” I muttered, my mind snapping back to the current situation. It was all starting to feel so real. This time tomorrow, or soon after, I’d be taking on my grandfather’s hidden fortune and the deed to his farm. I surveyed the land, standing there, leaning against the cabin that would soon be my home. Looking out at the field, it was a mess. A real ‘fixer-upper’, as they say. But someday soon, it’d be teeming with a sea of veggies and fruits, enough to feed the whole town and then some.

And if I was indeed the town’s source of nutrition and self-sustainability, then I would take that task seriously. I would get those chickens for my daughter, but I would also get cows, pigs, and goats, setting aside a part of my land for grazing. From there, the sky was the limit.

I rubbed my palms together to keep warm as a chill wind suddenly rustled me out of my reverie. I looked down, smiling as Fierce Boy panted happily, waiting for me to do something, or for some kind of instructions. “Well, buddy,” I said, “should we reintroduce ourselves to the locals? Not that you need any introduction.”

Woof! Woof!

“Not that you need any introduction around here. But I should probably let people know I’m in town so we can avoid any gasps of shock at the funeral tomorrow.”

The last thing I wanted was to become a spectacle. I viscerally shuddered at the idea. I just wanted to live my life and do my part. I didn’t need a big greeting, and I certainly didn’t need any drama.

Fierce and I headed toward town together. Door to door, I knocked and was received by every home or place of business that could and would receive me at the moment. By the time I was done, I felt confident that there wasn’t anyone left in town that would be shocked to see me at the funeral in the morning. I got all that awkward surprise out of the way today.

When it was all done, I headed back to Queenie’s house. I had the intention of seeing what the mother of my child was up to—but it wasn’t she who greeted me at the door.