IN THE BEGINNING
The city limits were perhaps thirty miles away and rain clouds loomed behind him as Matt Weaver picked up his walking pace although aware he couldn't outpace a wind-driven rain. Matt figured it was better to get soaked later than sooner.
He heard a vehicle slowing. It could be the cops. The highway was pretty deserted because it was not quite 6:15 am.
"Well do you want a lift or don't you?" a female called.
"I heard it was illegal to hitch a ride or pick up a hitcher in these parts."
The woman snorted, "Well you heard wrong."
She wasn't pretty and had a couple of teeth missing. She said she lived in a shack about two miles away and he was welcome to sleep the night.
"Take me to the city."
"Don't have enough gas and don't get my pay check till Friday. Anyways, what are you doing walking at this time of day?"
"Choose between improving my health or the rig I traveled on during the night dumped me off about five miles back."
"I work at the mill, night shift. You should have asked me for a ride there, saved you walking five miles."
"I didn't know you were there and I didn't go into the mill."
"Just testing your IQ. Jump in."
"Thanks. The name's Matt Weaver."
"Is that two 'T's and no 's' at the end of Weaver?"
Matt yawned and said correct. He waited and finally said what's your name?"
"Sally Rivers, an abandoned wife."
"Sorry."
"Why? You didn't abandon me."
Fifteen minutes after arriving at the shack and serving coffee, Sally pulled up her dress and leaned across the kitchen table, belly side up.
"Pull my panties down and have sex with me."
"Why?"
"I've gone about six weeks without it after being used to getting it night and morning."
"I really don't know you."
"Christ Matt, roll on this condom and make whoopee. Are you an escaped prisoner?"
"No but I was a warder at the Pen. Got fired for having sex with a female prisoner as the Inspector of Prisons was making his quarterly inspection after he kicked my bare ass. He was wearing boots."
"It was a wonder you weren't jailed yourself."
"I was, being improperly incarcerated for six weeks without trial and then taken and dumped thirty miles away yesterday afternoon. About 10:00 a rig driver who'd stopped for a rest gave me a lift."
"That's enough speechmaking. Stick it in."
Sally liked the way Matt fucked her, with variety and subtle changes in pressure and speed. She only had the one condom so for the second session she told him to proceed without protection. "Just don't make me pregnant."
Apparently Matt had no idea how to comply with that instruction.
He said he was in no hurry to move on so Sally said stay. He had no money so Sally arrived home on payday with tins of paint and told him to paint her house in return for food.
"What about fucking you?"
"I don't charge for that. Charging is called prostitution and I'm a respectable woman."
Matt left six weeks later, unknowingly leaving Sally pregnant and for a time she didn't know either. She never saw him again and when the baby was born she registered it as Matt Weaver, father unknown.
TWENTY YEAR ON
Matt arrived home and said to his ailing mother, "Got fired today."
Sally croaked, "What fighting again?"
"No for having sex with the operations manager's wife. Bill was supposed to have gone to Clarence for the day. We fought, er Bill and me, and I knocked him down and was about to finish him off when the bitch pulled a gun on me. I took it off her and when Bill regained consciousness he fired me but was decent enough to pay me off in full. I kept the rifle though he case he got ideas and shot me as I was walking to my pickup."
"Well bring the gun into my room and leave it here for safety."
Bill did that and his mom told him to go into town to get more painkillers, saying her throat was killing her. When Matt returned he'd found blood everywhere.
Sally had shot herself.
The sheriff told Matt not to leave the area until the investigation was completed and the Coroner delivered his verdict.
"Leave and we'll run you down and shoot you like a stray dog," Sheriff Williams smiled.
Everything checked out.
The operations manager had plenty of facial bruising to substantiate there had been a fight and his wife verified her husband had caught her with Matt and that Matt had disarmed her and gone off with the rifle.
Two women in the drugstore remembered Matt bringing in a prescription the doctor had left for Sally for restricted drugs to relieve her pain.
Sally's fingerprints had been on the gun and there was no sign of a struggle.
The Coroner found, 'Suicide in the face of severe and on-going pain consistent with terminal throat cancer'. With the delivery of that verdict the Sheriff told Matt he was free to go and when Matt asked for the rifle the lawman laughed and said it would be returned to its rightful owner.
A couple of hours later Matt was in the office of the operations manager.
"I'd like my old job back Bill?"
"Fuck off Matt before I call security."
Matt left, not sure what to do once her finished two things back at the house.
He put fresh flowers on his mother's grave and left for he knew not where, abandoning the property that was worthless. He stopped for a final look back and saw the dwelling was well alight.
CLARENCE PRESENTS OPPORTUNITY
Matt drove his ailing pickup to the larger town of Clarence almost three hours away and eating at a diner asked the waitress did she know of any jobs up for grabs.
"I'll ask the boss."
A woman came over.
"I'm Peg Cox. Can you cook?"
"No."
"Can you sweep floors and do repairs?"
"I don't sweep floors."
"Then there's nothing here for you."
She was a bit too fat for Matt's liking but nevertheless he said, "I could provide you with sexual experiences you'll never forget in return for money."
Peg grinned. "My husband is the chef. He has thirteen knives and he'd stick everyone of those into your vital organs if he found you at me."
"Er perhaps I should back off and save you that embarrassment?"
She laughed.
"Try my cousin Bettina Fields at the Ranch Supplies Depot. She could do with some muscle around the place, having only women and old men on her payroll at present."
Bettina was picking at her teeth gaps with a straw and watched Matt approach, thinking what she could do with Matt over a barrel of molasses or even a bale of hay, preferably a round one.
"Mrs Fields?" Matt asked politely, thinking she was a scaled down version of her cousin.
"Yes."
"You cousin Peg at the Diner said you might consider hiring me for my muscle."
The side of her mouth twitching with nervous tension, Bettina looked at his crotch, attempting to appraisal his muscle.
"Oh?"
"Yes. She thought you needed a strong guy like me to throw around sacks a grain, stack bales of hay and load lumber railing and fence posts for clients."
"Oh that kind of muscle?"
"Well there isn't any other kind, is there?"
"That's one point of view. Come close and allow me to feel your muscle... er your arm muscles. She felt his right arm and said "Oooh," and slapped his stomach with the back of his hand and sighed, "Ohmigod."
"Are you okay Mrs Fields."
"Nothing what a good length couldn't fix... um a good length of time in bed. I'm um weary,"
"Well why not lay back and let me do all the work?"
Bettina nodded and said thoughtfully she rather liked that idea.
"Then I'm hired?"
"Ah yeah, I suppose so. There's a bed in the loft you can have. I'll put the cat up there to control the rats but don't feed him otherwise he'll lose his appetite for vermin."
"Um washing, I mean me and my clothes."
"You can use the bathroom to shower down here in the staff room. I suppose you can eat with my husband and me but that will cost you."
"You have a husband?"
Bettina cackled, "Doesn't everyone?"
He said he didn't and said she said hers was useless. All he did was to drink away profits.
"What's your name boy?"
* * *
"What's your name boy," asked Lester, the rheumy-eyed husband who looked at least fifteen years older than Bettina. Looking at the guy killing himself with booze. Matt gave his name for the second time and reminded himself to go easy on booze, not that he could afford it at present. Bettina had already told him not to accept liquor from Lester because that would be the same as stealing money from the cash box.
During the evening meal Lester asked, "Why are you eating with us?"
Bettina said because Matt was the new roustabout.