Friends and Lovers...
"I couldn't stand the thought of you being here alone," he said. We were lying on the makeshift bed Owen made from sleeping bags and comforters in front of the fire. Owen suggested I shower so that it would warm me up, but I suspected he wanted to be naked next to me. After the shower, he had me lay before the fire while he got the food he'd prepared.
"The clinic was nice enough to let me go without working out my resignation. John brought his brood over to help me pack, and I left St. Paul at four this morning."
"Are you very tired?" I asked, kissing him lightly. I might have been lying on the floor in his arms, but I was also ten feet off the ground. Any thoughts that Owen was with Thomas were gone.
"I was here when I called you earlier. I did a little of this...a little of that...fed and bedded the animals...and got some rest. I'm energized just by being here with you. I've missed you." He was kissing me on my neck, working his way down to where the now-faded hickey had been. "Do you want to talk?" He whispered, licking the spot.
I shook my head. Talking was the furthest thing from my mind at that moment. As I looked at it, we had six days to spend together before the masses descended upon us again. There was plenty of time to talk.
"I like how you redecorated." He said, looking at the covered cameras.
"Yeah, I felt like I was being watched. It was creepy." I hugged myself closer to Owen.
"Can you act?" He asked the next morning. We were still in the living room. I'd stoked the fire, but we needed more wood, which meant getting up and going outside. We weren't ready to leave the warmth of the little world we'd created. There were still large embers and a thick comforter keeping us warm, and that's all that mattered. We spent the night holding each other, doing nothing more than kissing. We weren't under a microscope or expected to perform.
"I don't think I'd win a role in a movie, but if you need me not to tell the truth about something, I can probably do that."
He sat up and looked at me. "I hate that Thomas is controlling how we live our lives. I want our first time to be personal between you and me."
"Oh, I can do that, no problem," I said softly, rubbing my hand across his chest.
"Good. Then tonight, I want to take you on a date, so to speak. I want our first time to be special."
"How can it not be?" I said, smiling.
"Come on. Get up before I take you right now. We have work to do; you've slacked off enough. This is a farm you have running here; let's get to it." At that moment, I knew everything that Thomas said was a lie. I would never let Owen out of my life. I disobeyed his order by pulling him back in my arms and kissing him again.
An hour later, my cell rang as we walked out the door. It was Joshua. There was a sick cow at the dairy. He'd already called the vet but wanted me there if he needed to separate the herd. I hooked the horse trailer to my vehicle and loaded the horses, just in case, while Owen transferred his medical bags to my truck.
We made it to the dairy in thirty minutes, knowing it would take Charlie at least forty-five or more to get there. Owen grabbed one of his bags and was on the cow within minutes of arriving.
"Who's he?" Joshua asked. Strangers were suspects and outcasts until they proved themselves.
I gave him a truncated story, with the major point being I needed help with the expansion. He had three years of vet school but had to drop out due to a family emergency. He would be working at my farm for an unspecified amount of time while he saved money to finish school.
By the time Charlie arrived, Owen had already made his diagnosis and was treating the young cow. Charlie, who'd been complaining he wanted to cut back on his vet hours, was impressed with Owen's knowledge and abilities and didn't hesitate to ask if he'd be willing to help out on an on-call basis. Owen readily agreed.
The more veterinary work he could do, the better his resume would reflect when he applied back to school. The two of them disappeared into the office Charlie kept at the dairy.
Charlie took advantage of being called to the dairy to check on the cows, saving him a trip in the coming week. Owen worked at his side like he'd been doing it for years. Charlie was old school, and Owen knew the latest techniques. The two were feeding off each other, gaining valuable insights and information. Charlie was more than impressed with Owen and let Joshua know we were damn lucky to have someone like Owen living so close by.
Joshua's unfriendly manner melted.
"You married?" he asked Owen before we left.
"No, Sir."
"We got some lovely young women here ripe for marriage. A man has an obligation to bed a woman and bring children into this world. When you are ready to spawn those youngins, you come by here. I will fix you up good."
"I will do that, Sir," Owen said, shaking Joshua's hand. Boy, did he ever know how to play the game!
Joshua turned to me and shook my hand, too, a first.
"I thank you for always being there, neighbor. Just remember that being neighborly goes two ways. If you ever need anything. I'm your man."
"Thank you, Joshua," I said, shaking his hand again.
"God bless you, son," he said, thanking me again. Joshua was the friendliest he had ever been with me, and I wondered if it was because of Owen or because I was standing on my own for the first time, and it reflected in my demeanor.
By the time we returned, it was after two in the afternoon. We unloaded the horses, did some stuff around the barn, and showered, attempting to keep things as generic as possible. Our desires were silent but ever-present. With his strength of will intact, Owen dragged me to the kitchen, where he assigned me the task of fixing us a light lunch while he busily started dinner, which he put in the slow cooker.
"We will most likely be starving after I ravage you," he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. My bite mark was back again and bright as ever. "The stew should be ready sometime after eleven tonight."
"We'll still be awake?"
He shook his head. We would.
"I plan on making love to you into tomorrow." He wrapped his arms around me and lifted my chin to look at him. "On the plane coming here for the audition, I kept asking myself the same question: what made me want to do this thing? I finally know the answer. After a lifetime of having this awful void, it was to meet you." He touched his lips to mine with a brief, chaste kiss. I wanted to tell him I felt the same way, but somehow, I think he knew.
"On the teaser show, you mentioned Cyndi administered enemas to you. How much anal activity did the two of you partake in?"
"She would finger me occasionally. It wasn't something she enjoyed doing, mostly because it didn't bring her sexual satisfaction. She was selfish when it came to things like wanting to please me. Before Thomas arrived, our selection of sex toys was pretty sparse. I suspect if we had a dildo or a strap-on, she might have used that on me."
"I'm glad she didn't."
"Me too. I watched her use a dildo on Thomas. It looked very painful and not the pleasurable type of painful either."
"Tell me about the enemas."
"She loved to administer harsh, soapy enemas. She liked the pain they caused me."
"Why?"
Was it my place to tell him about Cyndi's demons? I looked at him and realized he wanted to know everything about me, and Cyndi was a part of who I was.
"Cyndi had an awful childhood. I think that's one of the reasons she always has to be in control. Her mother was very dictatorial. She was a whole other story. I'll save that for another time...or not. She ran her house with an iron fist. Cyndi was expected to move her bowels every day. If she didn't, her mother administered a soapy enema to her."
"Her mother had severe OCD and kept detailed diaries of everything Cyndi ate, drank, and did. She was weighed daily, and if she gained more than half a pound or lost more than a pound, she was put through an inquisition. She was also a ruthless disciplinarian. Every infraction of her rules carried a punishment."
"Cyndi's mother was knocked up out of the gate of losing her virginity. It was a shotgun wedding between two people who barely knew each other and eventually came to loathe the other. Her mother was going to ensure, at all costs, that her daughter would not get pregnant. She monitored Cyndi's periods like clockwork, and if she was even a day late, she was put on the bed, had her spread her legs, and inspected that she was still a virgin. If she and I wanted to go to the movies or dance, she accompanied us and didn't stand in the background. She was right at her daughter's side, ensuring her virtue stayed intact."
"Her father was no better. He blamed her for ruining his life. He let Cyndi know every day of her life that if it weren't for her, he'd be the happy-go-lucky carefree bachelor he deserved to be."
"They were killed in a single car accident, well, not really an accident. He was drunk and drove the car into a tree at full speed. The car exploded on impact, and they were killed instantly. A witness at the scene said they were fighting, and he deliberately killed himself and his wife. Cyndi was sixteen when it happened. She discovered after their deaths that the farm was in foreclosure. They were in severe hock and had tax issues. As the last living relative, she was responsible for the debt they had amassed."
"Cyndi didn't want to become a ward of the state, so Trina's parents took her in until she finished high school. Trina was and still is Cyndi's best friend. She is also our CPA. Who knows what would have become of Cyndi and I if her parents were still alive. They were so poisonous."
"That tells me a lot about her nature. I'm sorry you've had to be the one she took her angst out on."
I didn't say anything for a long time.
"I feel so stupid," I sighed, "It took you five minutes of listening to me tell you Cyndi's story to figure her out. I've spent the past ten years living with her and more years than I can remember before that. I never drew a correlation between Cyndi's childhood and the basis for how she treated our relationship. How could I have been so blind?"
