Chapter 5
“Pumpkin, I’m just so happy to hear you found something and you’re doing well. You know we worry about you all alone up there in the city!”
Her mother’s voice was tinny and distant through her low-quality Bluetooth headphones, and Violet considered that replacing them might need to jump the priority line over luxury vegetables. Her explorations around Cambric Creek had been tentative so far and completely restricted to her brief lunch break. There was a green market that set up on Wednesdays in the parking lot just up the road, which she’d taken advantage of several times since starting at the farm, relishing in the fresh produce, but not sounding as though she was having a conversation from the bottom of a well might be more important than fresh mesclun and radishes for dinner.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Violet reminded her mother, knowing it was no use, as she was a worrier by nature. “It’s been going really well so far. I’m actually able to start paying back my loans now, so you know . . . light at the end of the tunnel eventually.”
She listened with half an ear as her mother made noises about her taking out so many loans, bemoaning the fact that it had been necessary in the first place. In front of her, a waifishly slender troll prepared her order of the barista’s special. The coffee shop was down the street from the farm, nestled between businesses in a strip mall, and she’d been overjoyed to find it, stepping over the threshold with her heart thumping in her mouth, nervous over her first official trip into a non-human business . . . but the shop had been empty, save for the bored-looking troll behind the counter, a satyr who never looked up from his cellphone, and a hunched, hyena-faced man sitting near the window.
The coffee was her reward for the messy start to the day, necessitating changing her scrubs after the second client and punching in the cleaning code for the very first time. The bull had been younger than the normal farm client, maybe a bit younger than herself, and had seemed jittery from the moment she’d entered the room. He’d fidgeted as she took her place beneath the table, his long cock already purple at the tip, twitching before she’d even lubed her gloves.
“That means he likes you,” he laughed nervously, and Violet sighed, assuming he’d be a Pop-n-Go client once the milking nozzle was applied.
“Just try to relax. Let me know if it’s too much pressure.”
He’d groaned when she slickened him with the oil, panting when she began to stroke. His pants had turned to whimpers as she brought one hand over another, reminding herself that this might actually be the least sexy job in the world, when only several minutes into his milking and without a single thrust of warning, he moaned long and loud, his cock erupting, coating her chest in ropes of his release, coming on her and on the floor, and nowhere near the milking machine.
“You haven’t even told us what you’re doing! Aunt Gracie was so excited to hear you found a good job, you need to call her and tell her all about it!”
She considered what her elderly great-aunt might say in response to hearing her surrogate granddaughter was professionally tasked with making minotaurs ejaculate, that she’d gone stomping back to the locker room that morning coated in a ridiculous amount of bullman semen, and decided it was a conversation best avoided. “It’s a pharmaceutical company, mom,” she cut in, attempting to quash a prolonged explanation. “I’m working with clients at a pharmaceutical company, it’s hardly glamorous. But it doesn’t need to be, because it’s going to pay the bills. Did I tell you it’s out in the suburbs? If I’m still here when my lease runs out, I might move closer to save on gas.”
Her mother’s exclamation of relief was expected, and Violet congratulated herself on changing the conversation’s direction. “That’s wonderful! We’re so proud of you, pumpkin, and I think moving out of that awful city is an excellent idea. I forgot to mention . . . Carson from the up street? The Tinsleys? Well, he’s just moved back home. His mother was just telling me last week how happy she is to have him while he gets back on his feet after the divorce, you know. He grew up to beveryhandsome, Violet. Maybe the next time you’re home for a visit the two of you could go for coffee and catch up.”
Violet didn’t need to tax her imagination to picture the smug look she knew had crossed her mother’s face, the same one she always assumed when she thought she’d come up with a fantastic idea, regardless of how ill-thought the idea actually was.Divorced before thirty and needs to move back home, as if that’s something to aspire to. The cup placed in front of her by the troll had a murky appearance, and she frowned. “Mom, I’ve got to get back, I’m just on my lunch break.”
“Oh, of course! We’re so proud of you, Violet. Call us on the laptop when you can, we want to hear all about it, okay?”
The diatomaceous earth in the barista’s special gave the drink a chalk-like texture and mucky taste, even less appealing than the burnt coffee from the expensive chain near her apartment, and she only managed to choke down half the cup on her walk back to the farm before giving up. Her mother’s less than subtle hint about her old junior high sweetheart rankled in her mind as she walked, and Violet scowled. She didn’twantto move back home, didn’t want to go back to the cookie-cutter middle class human neighborhood where she’d grown up, regardless of what her mother wished. It had been a looming possibility before the job at the farm, but now that she was actually starting to turn the corner off destitution alley, she was loath to think of going back, and the milquetoast human with whom she’d made mud pies as a child did nothing to sweeten the deal, despite what her mother hoped for.You’re not moving back and that’s that. Time to focus on work.
There was a purple stickered file waiting for her, and her stomach had twisted and flipped from the moment it was added to her stack that morning. It had been two weeks since she’d seen the Clockwatcher, and true to his word he’d booked the last appointment slot of the day, giving her seven hours to think about what might happen that week—imagining how witty she’d be, what their conversations might consist of and if it might arouse him, as it apparently had the previous week, if they’d have another conversation at all. She didn’t make a habit of making small talk with any of the other clients, after all, and they never seemed inclined to do so on their own.
“I trust you’re having a better day this week? I’d hate to think I was a harbinger of bad luck for you.”
Violet didn’t know what it was about him—the rigid set of his shoulders or the way his voice reminded her of a thunderclap, deep and matter-of-fact, or maybe a combination of the two, encased in his well-tailored business attire—but a shiver moved up her back as her stomach flipped and her legs nearly turned to liquid, heated by the fire he ignited between her thighs.Hey, this isn’t a sexual job, remember?She’d always been a sucker for authority, eager to impress her professors and supervisors with quick compliance, and she suspected if this sharp-voiced minotaur barked an order for her to climb the short staircase and kneel before him, thick cock hanging obscenely over the unzipped fly of his pants, she’d have dropped to the ground without a moment of hesitation.
As it was, the big bull loomed from the center of the upper room, looking down over her. His shirt that day was a pale blue, well-pressed and tidy; his trousers a slate grey, and his hair as messy as ever. Violet did her best to suck in a slow breath through her nose, not betraying the butterflies she’d felt all morning and afternoon. “It’s been a very good day, actually. I had a cancellation earlier, so I finally had a chance to grab a coffee that didn’t come from our break room, and the rest of the day’s been pretty easy. Maybe you’re a good luck charm in this time slot.”
He chuckled at that, deep and rumbling, and the butterflies within her took wing once more. “Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to go back to the other place across town, but I’d be forced to make the sacrifice if you were still slipping on banana peels and missing files every week.”
She sputtered in mock outrage, her laughter ringing through the circular room, raising her head from the tank she’d hauled off the rack just in time to see the corners of his mouth lift slightly, the barest hint of a smirk. “I don’t recall ever sayinganything about banana peels.”
His shoulders lifted in a small shrug as his pants fell. “I used my imagination. In any case I’m relieved to hear it.”
The bench creaked overhead as she hooked the tank into place, quickly reviewing the readiness checklist. She tried to imagine him swinging a leg over the bench, his thick thighs squeezing the upholstery as he waited for her. She had only ever glimpsed the clients from the thighs up, and wondered what the rest of his legs looked like: if he had sharp, glinting hooves or if they were neatly filed; buffed to a shine or scuffed from activity.
There had been a satyr in line ahead of her that morning at the little coffee shop in the shopping plaza up the street from the Farm’s campus, and Violet had done her best to be discreet as she looked over his lower half, imagining that he would be at least close in composition to a minotaur. To her fascination, the satyr’s jeans had ended just above his jutting hocks, and she’d wondered if the messy-haired minotaur’s bespoke dress pants did the same. The satyr’s black hooves had been scuffed grey around their edges, and she’d been unable to imagine her unnamed minotaur’s looking the same. Everything about him seemed too controlled for that, too polished and austere.Well . . . except that messy hair. Besides, you’re acting like you know anything about him. And why are you trying to flirt with him!? It’s one thing to get off thinking about his junk, you don’t need to wind up with a crush. That’s completely unprofessional.
She scowled at her inner monologue, shaking the sensible voice away.Shut up. We’re just having fun, it’s a conversation, not a proposal.The minotaur’s previous words had sparked a question in her mind, and she voiced it then, taking her place beneath the table. “There’s another place like this? These sorts of places are . . . common then?”
“Mhm. There’s one in Bridgeton, right by the history museum. I’ve been to that one and the one in Starling Heights, but that place doesn’t compensate enough to make the drive worth it.”
“I live in Bridgeton!” she exclaimed in awe, trying to imagine what building housed the milking facility, only realizing belatedly that she was sharing more personal information. “I go past the history museum a few times a week, I can’t believe I didn’t know it was there!”
He huffed again, that deep chuff that wasn’t quite a laugh. “It’s in the same building as the flower shop with the big window displays. I used to live in Bridgeton and it was convenient then, but I wouldn’t want to go back there now. Not as nice as this place, or as selective.”
“I don’t know why I thought this place was unique. So do all minotaurs know about this?”
“Oh, they know alright. Most bulls do it, and if they haven’t yet, believe me, they’re thinking about it. There’s no reason not to. Humans have commodified us, and the financial compensation for a natural bodily function is a no-brainer, especially once there’s a mortgage to think about. Family men? Forget about it. How else would they be able to afford to take the kids to Blinxieland? May as well get paid for what’s going down the shower drain every day.”