Chapter 17: Helpers
The evening air had turned cool, carrying the scent of cut wheat and distant rain. Emi was washing the supper dishes, her hands moving mechanically in the soapy water, when the headlights swept across the kitchen window. Two pickup trucks, dusty and dented, crunched to a stop in the yard.
Hart peered out the curtain. “Luke and Tom. Brought over the extra baler belt from the Henderson place.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood. “Boys, go on out and help ‘em unload it.”
Bob and Sam pushed back from the table. Emi kept her eyes on the plate she was scrubbing, listening to the screen door slam, the deep voices greeting each other in the twilight. The harvesters were older, in their forties, with faces leathered by sun and wind. She’d seen them at church a handful of times, nodding politely from her pew.
The men hauled the heavy machinery part into the barn, their voices fading. Emi dried her hands, about to retreat to the bedroom, when Hart’s shape filled the back doorway.
“Emi. Stay put.”
His tone pinned her to the spot. He turned and called out into the yard. “Luke! Tom! C’mon in for a minute. I need a hand with somethin’ else before you go.”
Bob and Sam re-entered first, their expressions unreadable. The two harvesters followed, wiping their boots on the mat. Luke, the taller one with a missing fingertip, took off his cap. Tom, stockier, with a thick mustache, nodded at her.
“Evenin’, ma’am.”
“Gentlemen,” Hart said, leaning against the doorframe, blocking the exit. “Appreciate the help with the belt. Thing is, we got another kind of… chore. Needs extra hands.”
Luke’s brows furrowed. “That so? What kinda chore?”
Hart’s smile was all friendly crinkles around the eyes, but it didn’t reach the set of his jaw. “The milkin’ kind.”
A beat of confusion passed between the two visitors. Then their eyes traveled from Hart’s face to where Bob and Sam had moved to stand by the kitchen table. Bob’s hands went to his belt buckle. Sam’s did the same. The metallic clinks were obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen.
Emi’s breath hitched. She understood. This was the new territory. The “menu.”
“Emi,” Hart said, his voice dropping to that soft, commanding register. “Up on the table. Now.”
Her legs moved without her willing them. The linoleum was cool under her bare feet. She hoisted herself onto the worn wooden surface, the same table where they ate breakfast. She could smell the faint scent of fried eggs and bacon underneath the sharper tang of her own nerves.
Hart stepped forward and took the hem of her simple cotton dress. In one smooth motion, he pulled it up and over her head, leaving her naked under the stark electric light of the kitchen. The cool air pebbled her skin. Her breasts, still full and tender from the doctor’s attentions that afternoon, felt heavy.
Luke and Tom froze. Tom’s mouth actually dropped open. Luke’s cap crumpled in his tightening fist.
“Now,” Hart said calmly, as if explaining a crop rotation. “Rules are simple. You can use her mouth. You can suck on her tits. You do not touch her cunt or her ass. Those are for family. You break that rule, we break you. Clear?”
Tom managed a strangled sound. Luke just stared, his eyes dark and wide, locked on Emi’s body. She kept her gaze on the far wall, on a crack in the plaster, her heart hammering so violently she felt lightheaded. This was different from the clinic. The doctor was a man of science, a stranger in a sterile room. These were men from town, men who knew her husband, who would see her at the post office.
The sight of Bob and Sam, now fully naked and stroking themselves to hardness, broke the visitors’ paralysis. It was a display of total complicity, a silent endorsement of Hart’s insane offer.
Luke was the first to move. He fumbled with his belt, his work-roughened hands clumsy. Tom, with a guttural curse, followed suit.
“Who’s first for which?” Hart asked, like he was dealing cards.
“Mouth,” Luke grunted, shoving his jeans down.
He stepped up to the table. Emi closed her eyes. She felt his calloused hands on her cheeks, the smell of sweat and tobacco and diesel fuel filling her senses. He guided himself between her lips. He was thick, not as long as Bob, but with a rough, veined texture. She gagged instinctively, then forced herself to relax her throat, a skill she hadn’t known she possessed until this life.
At the same time, Tom knelt on the floor by the table. He didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her breast, his mouth latching onto a nipple with a desperate, hungry suction. The pull was sharper, needier than the doctor’s had been. It sent a jolt straight to her core, a traitorous heat that pooled low in her belly despite her shame.
The kitchen was filled with the raw, ugly sounds of it. Luke’s ragged breathing as he thrust into her mouth. Tom’s noisy, greedy sucking. The creak of the table under her. Bob and Sam’s silent, watchful stroking. Hart’s quiet, approving presence by the door.
Luke came quickly, with a shudder and a rough cry, spilling into her throat. She swallowed, the taste foreign, salty-bitter. He pulled out, stumbling back, zipping himself up with trembling hands, unable to look at her.
Tom didn’t wait. He stood, still sucking on her breast, and traded places with Luke. Now it was Tom in her mouth, frantic and eager, and Luke at her chest, kneading her other breast, his bite less careful. The overload was familiar now, a chaotic symphony of sensation that somehow, horrifyingly, began to morph into a dark kind of pleasure. It was the sheer usedness of it, the complete surrender. She was a thing for their relief, and in that, there was a terrible freedom.
Tom lasted longer, but not by much. He cursed, hips stuttering, and filled her mouth. She took it, milk leaking where their mouths had been.
They both backed away, panting, clothing themselves hurriedly. They looked shell-shocked, guilty, but beneath that, a glimmer of awed, predatory satisfaction.
“Thanks for the help, boys,” Hart said, his voice amiable. “Don’t mention it. To anyone.”
Luke nodded, muttering a “goodnight.” Tom just tipped his cap, his eyes skittering over Emi one last time before they fled out the door into the dark.
The screen door banged shut.
Silence, except for the hum of the refrigerator.
Hart turned the lock.
The dynamic in the room shifted instantly, the air tightening. The spectators were now the main event.
“On your hands and knees, girl. On the floor,” Hart said.
Emi slid off the table, her limbs weak. The linoleum was cold and gritty under her palms and knees. She heard the soft sound of the petroleum jelly jar opening.
Hart positioned himself behind her. Bob lay down on his back on the floor beneath her, guiding her onto him. She sank down, taking his full length inside her with a shaky sigh. Before she could adjust, Hart pressed into her from behind, joining his son in that impossible, stretching fullness.
Sam knelt beside her head, his fingers tangling in her hair. “Open,” he murmured.
She did, taking him into her mouth, completing the circuit.
“Now,” Hart grunted, beginning to move, the slow, deep, claiming thrusts that she knew would rearrange her insides. “You tell us, Emi. While you’re full of us. How’d those other cocks taste?”
Bob’s hands held her hips, his eyes watching her face. Sam’s thumb stroked her cheek.
She couldn’t lie. Not here, not like this. The truth was a physical thing in her throat, around Sam’s flesh.
“They… they tasted good,” she whispered around him, the admission muffled. “Different. I liked it.”
Hart’s thrusts became harder, more deliberate. “You liked tastin’ strange men in my kitchen?”
“Yes,” she gasped, the word torn from her as he hit a deep, perfect spot.
“You want more?” Bob asked from beneath her, his voice strained.
Her body answered before her mind could, clamping down on them both, a ripple of intense pleasure wrenching a sob from her. “Yes!”
That was all they needed. They moved then in earnest, a relentless, driving rhythm that wiped away everything—the harvesters, the doctor, the world outside. There was only this: the slam of their bodies, the shared, groaning pleasure, the wet, slapping sounds, the taste of Sam, the feeling of being utterly claimed and filled by the three of them. She came in a silent, shattering wave, her cries absorbed by Sam’s flesh in her mouth.
They followed, one after another, Hart roaring his release, Bob arching up beneath her, Sam pulsing on her tongue. They filled her, all her permitted holes, marking her once again as theirs.
Later, spent and tangled on the braided rug, Hart nuzzled her damp hair. “You did real good, sweetheart. Opened up real nice for those boys.” He chuckled, a low, vibrating sound. “Think we might need more help around here soon. Fence needs mending. Truck needs a tune-up.”
Emi, nestled between Bob and Sam, her body humming and sore, simply nodded. The line was drawn. And she was learning, with a shuddering, addictive certainty, that every line they drew only existed to be crossed.