Spreading Seeds

Chapter 13 The Maiden's Wish

I was sitting at my desk by the light of the two candles in the sunflower candle holders checking my calculations and making notes about the oats, when Roy pulled back my drapes and threw a bag on to my bed. "A go-fer girl dropped this off for you just now," he said.

It had been six days since I had serviced the Soul Sisters of Sappho's and I figured it was the socks. I opened the bag and found a dozen pair of grey socks tied in a string and a sweater also grey, in the bag. There was a note in with them.

"Josh, Thank you for everything again. I had the Knitting club make you 12 pair; they only do dozens it seems. April sends the sweater to keep you warm on the trail. We keep you in our hearts and hope you will wear them in good health.

Love, Juney"

I thought it was awfully nice of them to throw in the extra socks and the sweater; I smiled thinking,

"Two more satisfied customers,"

and tried on a pair of the socks to check the fit. They were a little big but they would shrink a little and they had good solid bottoms and were very soft. I took off my shirt and tried on the sweater. It too was a little big and the sleeves were a little long but I figured that wouldn't matter in a cold wind.

Sarge looked in, "Am I disturbing you?"

"No Sarge come on in." I said.

"Nice sweater." He commented.

I modeled it for him, turning around so he could see it all. "April sent it to me, as a tip. I'd made a deal for 10 pair of socks and she was so happy I guess she threw it in for free."

"They are very generous people here, for the most part. I was wondering if you could do me a favor." Sarge said changing subjects.

"I'm listening," I said, it didn't do to just agree to Sarge's favors.

"Well I made a deal for some beer and Leona said it would be alright if I had one of you guys service her daughter. I had thought Raule was going to do it but Raule had a disagreement with a mule and is out of commission and Leona is pressing me to pay up for the last 20 cases of beer and I thought you might service the daughter for me?" Sarge looked hopefully at me.

I figured that Leona's daughter must be a dog, otherwise Sarge would have just made a date for after the Bath house. I wasn't too thrilled to take Sarge's left over's, they can be fat, ugly or mean. I shook my head. "No Sarge No deal. You're trying to stick me with a dog aren't you?""

"No Josh, I wouldn't do that to you." He said. "She is only about 35 and has all her own teeth and she's… She's more handsome than beautiful, but I wouldn't call her a dog." Sarge groveled beautifully. "She has a nice personality and is real clean." Sarge pleaded. "I'll throw in a case of beer?"

It wasn't the beer that made me say yes, really. It was the fact that Sarge had offered it as compensation. When I first met him he would assign all the dogs to me when we hit towns along the trail. I had left a trail of canine admirers from Bakersfield all the way out here. Only here there were so many women that some of them had to be pretty.

It was his acceptance of me as a team member that really sealed the deal. Well, and the $2.40 (Burney) that I could get by selling the beer on the market.

"Ok Sarge, I'll do it for you and the case of beer," I said and pulled off my sweater.

Sarge was all smiles, "Come on then get your robe. I told Leona we'd meet her and Lenore at the bath house." Sarge went off in a hurry, so I put away my sweater and folded the socks into the drawer in my cabinet.

I noticed a small flat ceramic container on my bed and bent to see what it was. It was light brown unglazed and was flat on one side and rounded slightly on the other. The flat side was much lighter than the rounded side and I put it to the candle. On the rounded top there was a slight impression of the number sign and eleven in slanted calligraphy. June too appeared to send personal thanks for a job well done it seemed.

I smiled in remembrance of June and inspected further. The flat side must be the bottom, the rounded side must be the top I got a closer look and found a seal of bee's wax between the pieces so I put the piece up to the candle flame and warmed the rim turning it until the two pieces started to come apart on a thin film of bees wax and I lifted the top off.

Inside was all glazed, a small sample cup containing a dark waxy deposit and a small brass scoop that I found on further inspection had a socket opening and one of my lighter splinters fit right in. Smiling about the secondary effects of

# 11

I figured Lenore just might appreciate a buffalo fuck.

I quickly stoked the pipe and took about half of Junes scoop to my small clay pipe and lit it off. Very nice smoke, I let it out and went off on in pursuit of commerce.

The entry way to the Bath house was packed and most of the women paid us no mind, just kept up a chatter that filled the room with noise. Leona and Lenore were sitting holding their robes and Leona; I recognized her from the fact that she was the older one, came over and shook hands with Sarge. "Oh I'm so glad you came."

"Leona this is Josh Perkins."

Leona took my hand and smiled. She turned and pulled Lenore up and introduced her to me. Lenore was a big woman and like Sarge said, more handsome than pretty. She kept her head down and in the dim light I couldn't see her too well.

Leona looked at Sarge and asked, "What's that young scamp Raule up to these days."

"Oh Raule, he got kicked by a mule this afternoon and, I thought he should lay down this evening." Sarge sounded convincing and really concerned for Raule's recovery.

"He's going to be alright isn't he?" Leona asked, holding Sarge's forearm tight with her free hand.

"Oh yeah," Sarge said, "He just needs a couple of days to get the soreness worked out." Sarge patted her hand on his arm. "He'll be back next week."

Leona was visibly relieved and said, "Why don't we go up to our house? Andre is on duty tonight and there is such a crowd in here we'll wait hours for a bath."

Sarge nodded and took Leona's arm and started to leave when I asked. "I thought that the women were boycotting Andre?"

Leona turned and said, "Tell him Lenore," and started out the door.

Lenore took my arm and smiled shyly at me, so I led her out of the Bath house and followed Sarge and Leona down the street.

The stars were out and it was a bit nippy Lenore cuddled and smiled up at me. She hadn't said a word. I asked, "Did the women forgive Andre?"

"Not really," she said, "It is just the administration said it was wasteful and since the Administration fined him a million dollars and the Black Brother's Trust held back a quarter of his income from the trust, well they said he had been punished enough and they needed him in the breeding cycle if only to have the extra gene's in the pool."

"So the Village Council let him back in the lineup?"

"Well no," Lenore said and laughed, "The Council said he had to beg the pardon from every female in the village, And for every woman above the age of 25 he had to wash her and satisfy her with only his mouth. Only after that could Andre be forgiven and join the lineup."

"Andre must be overjoyed." I said.

"He wasn't too happy about it when they handed him a list of the village and found it was in order of seniority and they told him he had to work down the list, oldest first" Lenore laughed, "You should of seen Granny Pebbles come into the bath house, she's first on the list. Well two women helped her undress and got her into the bath and sat her on the bench. Andre washed her real nice like and was just about to start trying to satisfy her when Momma said she wanted to go out front to look for Sarge and I didn't get to watch."

She stopped and took my arm to stop me and I looked around to see why? Sarge was just disappearing into a descending staircase that was at the base of a grassy hillside. Lenore took my hand and led me down the stairs lit by a small oil lantern in the corner before the door

"Our place is one of the oldest in the village. It was built as an observation post along the first perimeter." Lenore said as we opened the heavy wooden door. Inside it was lit dimly, sconces on the wall held numerous candles but only every fourth one was lit. "It is a lot darker than the new Domes and stuff they are building now but its home to Momma and me for now." Lenore said as she drew me deeper down a broad hall way

Midway down the hall was a threshold and the framework of some heavy doors, apparently long since departed. I noticed the wall on one side was the same chipped and punctured surface as the wall in the courtyard. I looked opposite and saw a set of four narrow slits in the wall and a there was a chute covenant for the dropping of hand grenades built into the wall. Evidently this must have been one of the sites of the insurrection but I just followed Lenore who said it took a while for the water to heat and her Momma was first in the bath.

At the end of the hall way were a set of upward leading stairs and we passed a landing as we ascended. "I'll fix a little some thing to eat, I didn't have dinner, they were serving goat again." She said as she released my hand and started lighting candles around what looked like a kitchen.

"Just take a seat," she said indicating some stools that sat at a counter covered in tiles of different colors as she passed around the room lighting maybe forty candles.

So the old fortress didn't seem so grim and I got a look at Lenore when she came over and sat at one of the stools and looked at me.

"You like to cook then?" I asked, indicating the numerous pots and pans that decorated the large u-shaped room. She wore her hair in braids, in the light now I realized it was a dark chestnut color and below the shoulder if she let it out.

She flipped a braid over her shoulder and smiled, "Yes I like to cook but what I really like is pots."

"Pots?"

"Well pots and pans, you can see my collection." She indicated the forty or fifty pots that hung on the walls of the kitchen, "Here I'll show you one." Lenore got up and walked around the room looking for that special pot and said "A Ha! There you are!" and pulled one of the pans down from the wall. She held it in both hands close to her chest and kept me from seeing the inside as she brought it to me. It appeared to be a pan like I've seen before it was stained and scuffed on the bottom and had a white metal handle. Of moderate size and fairly shallow. She turned it over and laid it on the counter. "Isn't it beautiful?" She asked staring at the mirror like surface.

Inside the old pan gleamed. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to polish it up so well. "Genuine 2001 Fredenthaller double stainless steel with a copper slug in the bottom. Possible the finest pan ever made." She smiled down at it. Then up at me. "You probably think I'm silly to care so much about pans and such but there is a lot of history in my pans." She laughed and looked up at me.

She was nice and on the way to the bath Sarge had told me she was legal "Just hit the list this mornin'," were his exact words. So I knew she was nervous and looking for some acceptance and a little compassion. I said, "I think pans could be interesting now that you mentioned it."

She took the pan back to the wall saying, "Well let me see if I can show you." And she selected a small iron pan and went to the counter and turned a knob on the front and a big burst of flame came up and she sat the pan on it after she adjusted the flame. She went to the cutting board next to the pan and opened a cupboard and pulled out an onion and took a knife out of a wooden block and began to chop the onion and checked the pan then poured a little oil in the pan and tossed in the onions.

So I sat and she cooked up a sauté of onions, drained canned tomatoes and chopped venison and added a little squash toward the last and a few spices along the way.

She dished it up on one plate and smiled at me, "I thought we could just share and save washing another plate." I smiled at her and nodded. Any woman that practical couldn't be all bad.

She handed me a spoon and a napkin and sat down. We ate and talked. I couldn't say just what it was but it was good and Lenore told me she was a cook at the old facility and worked a four day on, four day off shift up there. "They let me swap with Regina so I could have the whole four days off while I'm on the list, everyone wished me luck yesterday." She said and took my hand.

Lenore was handsome, pleasant and nervous I understood. "Lenore I have to tell you that the stew…"

"Rague." She corrected me.

"Rague was very good and you seem like a nice person but the Kiva requires me to make a trade with you. So what do you have to trade?" I smiled at her.

"I thought that was all worked out between Momma and Sarge, She told me she had it all set up." She said with real concern.

I held her hand and patted it. "Now they may have made an arrangement but you and I have to come to an agreement. You have to be willing for any son of mine to be brought up in the Kiva after he turns thirteen, and you have to give me something in return for any daughter we might have. This is really symbolic of our trust in each other," and spun the spoon with my finger while she mulled that over.

She looked all around the room at her most precious possessions and sighed and finally looked at me. "I don't know." She said. Then she looked down and saw the spinning spoon and grabbed it up and polished it on her napkin. "Here is a spoon," she said holding it up to the light, "A genuine Rogers solid silver spoon. How about this?" She smiled at me and waved it.

I smiled and took the spoon and admired it. It was worn as one would expect a three hundred year old piece of silver to be but the contour of the handle and the size of the spoon fit me and I nodded at her.

About that time a loud bell rang and scared the hell out of me. Lenore said, "Don't be frightened that just means mother is out of the bath room and it's our turn."

"How did she do that, ring a bell in here?" I asked, wondering if they had a string rigged from room to room.

Lenore laughed, "It is part of the old system that still works. They had alarm bells in every room and what ever powers them still works. We use them rather than climbing the stairs."

She smiled, gathered my robe and took my hand not even bothering to blow out the candles until I pointed out what a waste it would be.

Now I had an olive wood spoon and it was excellent. I could stir the tea pot with it or eat beans and bacon. It never splintered and was pretty durable. It only needed an occasional film of olive oil to keep it up. But the silver spoon was special. I was going to give it to my mother.

Lenore took me up another set of dark stairs and down a hall where an open door reveled some light. We went in and I saw that the room was tiled up above two meters on the walls and the floor was tiled with red. Most of the tiles were red but a few white ones and a blue one showed up along the walls. A chest of towels was by the door and the floor on one side was wet like someone had just bathed.

Lenore looked at me and asked me if I would like to see what I had agreed to. I nodded, "You are the Mother Goddess and you are beautiful."

She giggled and said "Everyone told me you were nice. I have a robe and things over here," she said and led me to a bench and coat rack.

She started to unbutton her blouse but I stepped up to her and said, "Do you mind if I unwrap the presents?"

She giggled and pushed out her ample chest to give me full access to her buttons.

Now there was a four candle candelabra in bath room and it was pretty dim but Lenore was made for candle light. She kept her hair up and showed me the shower that survived from the original facility. It was just two valves that came out of the wall and a nozzle that was above about shoulder high. Lenore showed me how you could adjust the temperature or the volume of the spray. "We can't play too long or we'll run out of hot water." She said as I soaped up her big breasts.

Her nipples were large and sensitive and she let me play with them and moaned a little as her hand slid down to my dick. She washed me real well and the water started to cool so we rinsed and dried each other off. She was smiling as she put on her robe and I stopped her and held her robe open and kissed her while pressing my body to her. She felt the warmth and responded by hugging me to her and we kissed for a while.

Laughing she led me by the hand up another series of steps and into her bedroom. It had been, she told me, one of the lookout positions for the fort and had thin windows around the perimeter of the room. The roof was low and the windows were at eye level. She had a bed in the middle of the room made of a stack of rugs. The head board had ten candles but Lenore only lit one of them, kneeling on the bed and then turned and began to unbraid her hair.

"Do you have a hair brush?" I asked.

"Yes?' she said, asking why at the same time.

"Get it and I'll brush you hair." I smiled at her "I like to play with hair and your's looked so beautiful in the kitchen, except it was in braids, get your brush and I'll give you a hundred strokes."

She got the brush and sat on the edge of the bed, I kneeled behind her. The brush was fairly soft, Hog's bristle I'd guess, but her hair was fine and it worked well. "Tell me, you said your pots had history, what did you mean?" I asked and brushed and counted as she told me the stories of her pots and pans.

She turned and the candle light caught her for my eyes. She had a broad face and nice eyes, kind and enthusiastic, her complexion was even and she showed some roses on her cheeks. From her smile I could see she had even teeth and a strong wide chin. Her skin was pale. "You mean it?" she smiled in disbelief.

I kissed her softly then a little harder, "We have time and I like to hear what interests people. "

She turned and threw back her head so I could brush the front and said. "Well I have this one pan that was used to stop the insurrection. It is all dented and looks terrible but it was vital piece of history."

"Oh yes," I said and lost count again at 12 or maybe 15. I started again and she continued.

"Yes, she said and turned around to face me. "Grace Schmitt was working a mid shift and was just making herself some lunch after the troops ate. Well she just had the grease in the pan all hot and had thrown in the cutlets when the alarm bells went off and she shut down the stove and closed the door, turned out the lights and waited. That was the way you're trained, to secure the kitchen and put on your night vision goggles."

"You have night vision goggles!" I asked incredulously.

"No, No I don't but this was back in the insurrection days and everybody who worked in the bunker had them at all times, in case the lights went out in an attack.

"Oh," I said and kissed her, her lips were large and soft and opened easily. I reached around and slipped my hand into her robe to fondled her nipple and then cupped her breast before slowly withdrawing and caressing her cheek. She was, in candle light, an 11 definitely.

That flustered her and she kissed me again and held my head for a while. She finally drew back and smiled very broadly and laughed. "Oh Josh, Oh Josh, Oh Josh," laughed then hugged me.

I didn't get it, why my name made people laugh around here but I let it go and started to brush her hair again. She turned back to her story and I started counting again,

"1,2,3."

"Well Grace was waiting for the all clear to sound and had turned her cutlets, 'cause she didn't want them to over cook, when the door started to open and she slunk down in front of the stove. She saw a man in night vision goggles, but he had no uniform, come in and when he turned to her she let him have the hot grease and cutlets in his face. Then shifted the pan into her right hand and "POW", hit him in the head. I think that's when she dented the pan. But it could have been when she had him on the ground and pounded the night vision goggles into the back of his head."