"I did it last night, Danny." Linda told Dan as they sat on the soft well kept lawn at the local park.
"Did what?" He asked her, flipping a page in the book he was studying.
"You know. Davey and I....we went all the way." She said, glancing sideways at him for a reaction.
"No shit?" He was surprised at that. Linda and Dan had talked many times about what it would be like to be grown up and living by themselves, on their own.
Yes, the subject of sex with someone had cropped up a few times. They both wanted to be married with kids and a good job, escape the farm and all of the constant work.
"No shit." She said, then she giggled.
Dan felt a sudden flash of anger pour over him.
He didn't even really understand why.
+++
That might sound like a strange conversation between a couple of barely 18 year old kids, but you would need to understand that Linda and Dan grew up together.
As babies they slept in a basket together under an umbrella while their parents worked in the fields. Linda's Mother had a much prized photo of the two of them happily suckling on each others fingers, framed and hanging on her living room wall. Born just days apart, Linda had a shock of brown hair and little Danny was born completely bald.
As children they splashed in the pond formed by the creek that ran between their family farms, forming what was a loose property line.
Livestock wandered back and forth whenever they wanted to. Of course they could have put up fences but that meant surveying to figure out where the lines actually were, and money to build thousands of feet of them, so they just never bothered.
The only fence lines they had were protecting the higher fields, the low lying bottom land was always used for grazing. Neither family was really sure where the property lines were up there either, it didn't matter because half the hay went into one barn and half went into the other.
At haying time, and during any harvests, both families were right in the middle of everything.
When the kids were bigger, they worked with the Sheep they raised, the fat Ewes sometimes had troubles delivering a set of twins. More than once they had their hands right up inside a big old Ewe to turn a lamb and drag it out of there.
It was like the bigger of the twins always came out first, the smaller and weaker of the two was crammed back into what space was left.
Then it was constant watching because the Ewe sometimes parked the weaker one in the brush and then would wander off with the stronger lamb.
That meant grabbing the lamb by it's leg and get it to hollering, the mother would appear without fail out of the flock and reclaim it, then it would start all over.
Plus the other half of the time one of them would lie down and then be so fat they couldn't get back up, legs frantically kicking in the air as they loudly bleated for help.
Or they would be in a ditch up to their noses in muddy water.
Contrary to what some might think, Sheep are very smart animals, if a gate was left open the entire flock would just have to investigate. Whichever one was the lead Ewe at the moment would study the situation, if there was a way in she would find it.
Linda's Mom loved to grow flowers and Sheep love flowers, that was a never ending battle. They unlatched gates, untied knots, worried holes in the huge blackberry bushes that served as fences.
If they managed to breach the fence around the gardens, they went right down the Lettuce row first, eating them to the ground, then they would begin on the Corn plants, one row at a time in what seemed to be an orderly fashion.
If any of the Cows got in there, they just stomped on everything. The Sheep were far more orderly in the way they fed.
Danny and Linda liked the Sheep best, it was fun to watch their little mouths nibble away at an incredible pace.
Every morning the lead Ewe took off, the entire flock in single file right behind, creating worn trails meandering across the fields.
Sometimes there were huge fights over which one was the boss, those went on for hours until one finally won the right. The next day it would start all over again as another Ewe stepped up to try and claim the boss position.
The Rams would sometimes follow along, but usually unless some of the flock was in heat the Rams mostly kept to themselves.
Linda and Danny's job was to check up on them, keep them out of the mud and on their feet.
Once in a while Coyotes would get in there and take one down, or a big Cat would come down from the hills. Both of them wore pistols on their hips by the time they were ten years old, and Dan had managed to get two of the Coyotes.
Predators were not that much of a problem, sending a pistol round their direction kept them skittish so most of the time those stayed in the woods.
People's pet Dogs on the other hand were a problem, if a pack of them hooked up and got into the flock they would kill until stopped.
Linda had knocked down a young Cougar one day that was dragging a fat Ewe away, that one lay in their living room as a carpet.
Both families had a party together over that one, the Cat had taken five head before it made the mistake of coming too far out into the open in daylight.
Linda's Dad had been hunting the animal without much luck, then one day Danny stopped to reclip a wire to a post and Linda went on down the hill. He heard her fire five rounds rapidly so he jumped on his ATV and went down there.
Four rounds of the five had found their mark.
Things like that were rare, most of the time it was dragging the Sheep out of the ditches which was a messy and muddy job but one that had to be done.
Linda and Dan would both just peel off their clothes and go in after them, she would get behind and push and Dan would grab a fistful of wool and pull.
With both of them naked, they would then dash for the riffles above the pond and wash off the mud, jump up and down to keep warm until they were mostly dry, then get dressed again.
Linda was a girl and Dan was a boy but that was no big deal, they saw animals making babies all the time. They knew all about sex and all about naked, all of the animals were and the two kids weren't a hell of a lot different.
Dan would have to say he never saw Linda's breasts actually grow, that happened so quickly one Summer that he didn't even realize until she climbed out of the pond one day and there they were.
Then he noticed she had a wisp of brownish pubic hair.
That was the first time he got an erection from looking at her. That had been happening anyway at home sometimes, but he knew what it meant from all the animals around all the time.
Linda saw that and began to laugh hysterically which pissed him off, they ended up in a scuffle and she managed to dump him right in the pond. At that stage of their lives Linda was bigger and stronger.
Then she told him she was sorry for laughing at him and everything was all right. She looked down and told him it was cute like that, which made his face flame.
After that he kept his under pants on when they had to drag a Sheep out of the mud, Linda noticed but didn't say anything. She kept hers on also from then on but she didn't cover up her chest which just kept right on getting bigger.
Barely a year later, things had changed, Dan began to grow like a weed and kept right on growing until he hit a full six feet and 190 pounds. Linda seemed to stop getting taller at 5'4".
There were no more scuffles, either, it was obvious who was bigger and stronger now.
One day they were tearing across the big hayfield on the ATV's looking for some of the flock that were missing. There always seemed to be a few that loved to hide and they had to go find them.
Three of them were through the line fence that was supposed to keep them out of the garden, one was stuck in the ditch, of course. It wasn't in trouble yet, just stuck so they piled some limbs in the hole where the three had nibbled their way through the berry bushes. They chased the strays out of there after clapping their hands rapidly.
The animals knew very well they were not supposed to be in there so they quickly ran out and rejoined the main flock.
