Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta

Chapter 16

The sunlight pouring through the open shade was cutting.

Violet groaned, shifting against the bunched sheets before snuggling against the broad chest beneath her cheek, squinting against the light. Rourke snuffled and huffed, the muscular arm around her tensing for a moment before he relaxed once more, his deep breaths resuming.

Saturday mornings were for lazing, sleeping off the previous night’s physical exertions before embarking on weekend adventures, and this—nestled against his warm skin, with a leg over his thickly muscled thigh and his heavy cock pressed to her front, his strong arm wrapped around her back—had become her favorite place to be. She’d never been the type to laze in bed, not previously. Too many years of early classes, of TA duties and tutoring sessions and work commutes; too many responsibilities that had her up before the sun on most days. Still being in bed this late in the morning would have been a cause for panic to her then, but then again, she’d never previously experienced the joy of falling directly into bed with an eager partner as soon as she walked through the door on Friday evening, followed by a dessert as large as her head.

Despite the previous night’s activities, there were things she wanted to do today. Cambric Creek, she’d discovered, was full of interesting little diversions for a couple to enjoy hand-in-hand—botanical gardens, interesting galleries, an old-fashioned observatory, and the picturesque little town square—and she had enjoyed discovering them all over the last several months. Summertime had meant street fairs and shopping, concerts in the park and community carnivals, followed by sharing an extra-late dinner before returning to the sanctuary and pleasure of his giant bed. Now that the summer months were waning, the shops around town had already begun to transition to their autumn displays, and she was excited to see what fun things would be on the community calendar.

“It’s time to get up,” she groaned, running her palm down his chest, scratching his solid stomach. Rourke grunted but made no movement. “Common, don’t be lazy. We wanted to go to the flower shop’s plant sale, remember?” She’d already picked out a large rubber tree to place by the sunny window in his living room, a ficus for the kitchen, and a small tray of succulents for her apartment’s tiny window ledge, but getting out of bed would be a necessary prerequisite to procuring anything.

The little shop was run by three identical sisters, each with glossy black hair and beetle-like bodies of iridescent green, who collectively seemed to know everything one could about houseplants. She’d been lured in one sunny Sunday afternoon, entranced by the vivid colors of the stained glass window display, pulling Rourke by the hand. The sisters had converged around her, cooing how nice it was to have a human stop in, and would she be interested in seeing one of their home-cultivated pitcher plants?

On the other side of the flower shop was an occultist’s tea room, a narrow space where Rourke’s wide shoulders and wider horns had been hilariously out of place the first time she’d dragged him in for lunch. Beside the tea room was a small salon which specialized in “cub cuts,” as evidenced by the small, fuzzy worgen and gnoll children whom she’d watched through the window as they zoomed in circles around the harried-looking stylists, and she’d wondered, not for the first time, what her own mixed-species offspring might look like. Not for a decade. At least.

“You need to make a friend,” he’d grumbled good-naturedly that day she’d left the tea room together. “And we need to go get real food now because those sandwiches were for children. Pixie children.”

Yes, Cambric Creek was full of strange and interesting things: new discoveries she made nearly every week at her boyfriend’s side, and warm and friendly residents who didn’t seem to care that she was a human. Despite the other species who lived in Bridgeton, humans were still the default majority and mixed-species couples were unusual. Violet couldn’t help but notice the looks she occasionally garnered in her own neighborhood when Rourke came to her, sidelong glances she never experienced when she stayed with him. She had begun to dread Sunday evenings when she would leave the quirky little town and his side, her apartment in the city too empty and no longer feeling like home.

“Moonstone!” she whined into his skin, huffing when he ignored her. Any other morning she might have snuggled back against his warm side and let sleep claim her, more comfortable in his arms than she was in any other place on earth, but today she was wide awake, the mid-week appointment on her phone’s calendar already spiking her anxiety. She wanted to buy her plants and get her coffee and be distracted by him and the town, and try not to think about how nervous she was.

The short, coarse hair that covered his skin was smooth beneath her palm as she ran a hand down his chest, stroking over his taut abdomen. He was thick with muscle, solid beneath her, the warmth of him increasing the closer her hand drifted to his groin. When she palmed the familiar weight of his cock, squeezing lightly before her fingertips drifted lower to graze his heavy testicles, he grunted into the pillow, shifting slightly. It didn’t make a difference how tired he might claim to be . . . there was one sure way to wake him up.

Massive in her hand and impossibly thick, even in its softened state, his cock was a comfortably familiar weight as she dragged her fingers slowly up his shaft and down again, encouraging his foreskin to slide with the motion, gradually exposing his pink head. A tiny bead of moisture pooled in the slit, visible every time she exposed the shiny glans, too delectable to resist wanting to taste it on her tongue. A deep rumble emitted from his chest as she kissed her way down its broad expanse, slowing over his stomach. By the time her lips had reached the crease of this muscled thigh, his cock had stiffened enough that she was able to grip the shaft, leading it to her outstretched tongue.

It was a waste, a terrible, awful waste, bottling his potent release and sending it off to be refined into little blue pills for human men. Now that she knew how sweet it was on her tongue, how good it felt to be filled until it ran down her thighs and made a mess of the towels upon the sheets, she hated the idea of him selling it. Her tongue pressed into the slit on his head, lapping up the beading precome before sliding into the edge of his foreskin. She’d perfected the art of maneuvering her tongue into the nerve-ending-packed sheath, sliding around his cockhead from within, licking the inside of his foreskin and tugging it gently with her teeth, as she did then.

“What are you trying to do to me,” he groaned, his giant hand landing on the back of her head, thick fingers threading through her hair as she bobbed shallowly on his length, sleep forgotten, and she smiled around him in satisfaction.

He was too big to suck properly. She’d tried, more than once, determined to mimic the abilities of the woman in videos and the countless other women whom she was sure would have been happy to take her place, but all that she’d managed to do was make herself gag on less than a third of his prodigious length.

“St-stop! Hugghhh . . . ”

She’d pulled back in surprise from where she’d knelt before him, months earlier, a thin strand of drool connecting her mouth to his cock, only to watch her giant, strong boyfriend retch dramatically. “I can’t—I can’t deal with gagging,” he gasped, hunching nearly to where she knelt before him, horns cutting through the air. “Hurgghh . . .you gag, I gag. Don’t-don’t do that again. If I wanted a deep throat that badly, I’d buy one of those milking machines.”

She’d wound up curled in a ball on the floor, wheezing with laughter at his feet before he’d controlled his gag reflex enough to scoop her up with a growl, bouncing her down in the center of his giant bed and forcing his mouth between her legs.

Since then she’d perfected her alternate routine of licking and sucking on his bulbous cockhead, stroking him in the way she already knew he enjoyed and mouthing at his heavy sack. Rourke groaned as she worked his foreskin back, sucking his head into her mouth as her hands squeezed and stroked. A stack of towels now lived on the bedside table beside the pump-sized bottle of lube, just within reach, and she snagged one then, depressing a dollop of the clear, viscous gel into her palm. Despite the copious amount of semen she collected from him each week at the farm, weekend morning yields, after passion-filled nights, were considerably less impressive. Enough to necessitate a towel, but not enough to need three.

“You really want those damned plants,” he groaned, tightening his hand in her hair as she sucked harder. Her job at the farm necessitated short, well-kept nails, and in the last several months, she’d discovered another perk to the low-frills manicure as she coated her fingers in the thick lubricant. It was a juggling act—keeping her mouth around his cock and milking his balls with one hand, while using the other to work two fingers into his ass, the tight ring of muscle sucking her in as she pumped against him, seeking his sweet spot—but it never failed to make him erupt like a geyser.

She remembered wondering if he would always be so uptight and controlled, or if he would grace her ears with a full-throated moan of pleasure in the privacy of his own bed. She’d long ago received her answer, and his deep bellow rattled the walls as his orgasm hit. When the first burst of his thick cream hit her throat, she swallowed greedily, endeavoring not to choke as her mouth was filled. The towel came in handy to catch the overflow as his balls throbbed in her hand, spurt after spurt until he sagged, his spent cock slipping from her lips.

There were two hampers in the bathroom—one for daily use, and one for the cleanup towels that were washed separately with a special enzyme, several pods of which she’d brought home, just in case, thinking of Mrs. Muehlstein and the sanctity of her cardigans. Towels cleared, hands cleaned, and then she was back in the bed, climbing up his body and collapsing against his heat.

“It’s time to get up,” she whispered against his throat, nuzzling into the thick hair there, arching against the hand he stroked down her spine. His wide, pink nose pressed to her hair, agreeing with a grunt when a deep, lushly-accented voice broke the quiet of the room.

“Junie, do not—do not even think of it. Get back over—Junie!”

The high-pitched yip of Rourke’s neighbor’s little dog rose in volume and the man’s voice took on a desperate tone. Rourke snorted and she managed to stifle her giggle as the man’s voice beseeched the dog. “Junie, please . . . you’re gonna wake up Mama, and then we’ll both be in trouble. Is that what you want?” The dog continued to yip shrilly as if that was exactly what she wanted, and Violet was unable to hold back her laughter then, climbing from the bed, pulling Rourke’s hand to follow.

By the time they were both dressed and ready to leave the house, the small terror known as Junie had been re-corralled in her own yard. Lurielle stood barefoot in the grass, her thick thighs and full bottom encased in a pair of tiny, terrycloth shorts and t-shirt with the logo of the local observatory emblazoned across it. A few yards away, Khash knelt, his own generous ass in the air as she gave instruction on where exactly she wanted him to dig a hole for the mum plants sitting on the patio’s edge. When she saw Violet, the elf waved brightly.

“Well?” she demanded. “How did it go?”

“The video call was this week,” Violet began, feeling her pulse kick up at just the thought, “and they called me back for a face-to-face. I meet with the director of development this week.”

“Perfect,” the elf crowed. “They’re going to love you! Just remember, they’re all about the community angle, the legacy of the town and their name, blah blah blah. Don’t undersell that end of it.”

“I won’t,” she agreed, thinking she’d not even need to exaggerate. She increasingly couldn’t see herself staying in the city much longer, couldn’t stand living so far from both the farm and Rourke. She was eager to call Cambric Creek home, and if she got this job, it would have to become a reality.

* * *

In the end, it had been Lurielle’s friend Dynah’s lead. Dynah was a petite, purple-skinned elf with a billow of auburn hair, a nervous, high-pitched laugh, and the ability to talk for ten minutes at a time without taking a breath. She lived next door to a witch who worked in the local hospital; the witch was friends with a home health aid who happened to have the inside track on the Slade Foundation’s upcoming initiatives for the new year, including their hiring needs.

The job would be perfect.

It was largely a research position, digging into archives to recreate the textiles and paint colors of some of the grandest buildings in town; full-time, and right there in Cambric Creek. The office she’d be working out of was in a former caretaker’s cottage that was grander than any house she’d ever lived in, within walking distance to the Black Sheep Beanery and the other shops and restaurants on Main Street. The pay was commensurate with what she made at the farm, and the flexibility of the tiny office meant she’d still be able to keep several shifts a week there.

Violet was half certain it was an elaborate joke, for dreamy-sounding jobs in cozy little carriage houses with ivy-clad walls in quaint little towns only existed in those predictable romance movies that she would binge watch from her sofa. You’re going to hate your co-worker, but then you’ll be paired together to create a wallpaper-making contest for the whole town that everyone will be really excited over, and then you’ll inevitably fall in love. The only problem with that network-ready scenario was the minotaur waiting for her to call him, whose bossiness she loved and whose cock she’d determined she simply couldn’t live without. Sorry, wallpaper boy. It’s not gonna work out. I already have a gentleman at home.

* * *

“Do you want me to quit?” she asked him later that night, once she was nestled against him in bed.

“Wait, what?” he demanded, his wide brow furrowing. “Why? No, of course not. What kind of grade A shit would I have to be to insist that you quit the job where I met you? Do you want to quit? That’s your choice, sweetheart, you know I’ll support whatever you want to do. It’s not terrible working conditions, is it?”

“No,” she’d quickly assured him. “No, of course not. I really like it there, everyone is really nice. I love the other techs. And you know, the guys who are too into it are actually pretty far and few between when you tally up the days. I don’t actually want to leave . . . I just want to make sure you’re still okay with it.”

His brow had furrowed again, and Violet found herself explaining the difference between clients like him, the Clockwatchers, and the Earners, and the Good Little Cows.

“The what?!” His laughter was an earthquake, quickly turning to disgust and then laughter again, dislodging her from his side to get up on hands and knees and demand that she “milk him like one of her French cows.”

She would keep the two shifts a week at the farm if she did get this job, she’d decided. The extra income could be earmarked exclusively for paying down her highest interest credit card, leaving more of her salary to go towards her loans . . . and besides, she hated the idea of any other technician handling her bull.

“It’s going to be fine, Violet.” Tucked against his chest was the safest place in the world to be, enveloped in his heat with the thud of his heartbeat under her ear. His deep voice rolled over her like a wave, divining her anxiety without her needing to say a word. There was a unit in Geillis’s building, soon available, a small miracle if she actually got this job, and unlikely to stay vacant for long if she waffled. She needed to decide what to do very soon, and the weight of everything—the interview and the bubble of hope within her, the apartment, the thought of having to pack and move, the conversation she’d need to have with her mother—it was all too much. “It will all work out.”

“But what if it doesn’t?” she whispered, unable to keep the wolves of her thoughts at bay. “I’m not good at making big decisions.” The weight of his hand at her back kept her grounded, a stroking pressure at her skin, pushing the wolves away.

“Well, good news, sweetheart. I am. It’s going to be fine . . . get some sleep. You’ve got a big week.”

* * *

The smell of coffee seemed to seep into her bones.

Violet took a deep breath, trying to center herself and banish her nerves. There’s nothing to worry about, this will be great. Like he said, everything’s going to work out. She’d arrived too early, as usual, anxious at the thought of hitting traffic and being late; preferring to be safe rather than sorry. It was a baseless fear, for she’d been making this drive five days a week for months now and traffic was usually minimal at this hour. All her extra caution had done was give her ample time to twist herself into knots, trying to remember why exactly why she would be a good fit for the Slade Foundation, trying to remember her qualifications, her degree study, her name.

She’d started the day putting into effect an old trick from her university days: pack as much trauma into a single twenty-four-hour period and save the rest of the week for the outcome. She was nervous over the call home she needed to make, nervous over her interview that afternoon . . . best combine the two and get it over with.

“Oh, I’m so glad you called, pumpkin! Did you get a chance to call Mrs. Murphy at the museum? I think this is going to be such a good opportunity for you, and just think! You’ll be able to move home!”

Violet grit her teeth, sucking in a slow breath. Her mother had called the previous week, leaving her a long message about her friend at the art museum in the neighboring suburb of the human town where she’d grown up. Mrs. Murphy was looking to fill three docent positions, and her mother had practically already signed Violet up for one of them, regardless of whether it had anything to do with her very expensive master’s degree.

“I know this is probably a bit under your level, darling, but you have to think about getting a foot in the door somewhere!” The museum in question focused largely on modern and contemporary art, as far away from her discipline as one could get and still be in the same building.

“I didn’t, mom, I’m sorry. That’s not something I’m interested in, to be honest. Those jobs are usually part-time, so that’s not really going to help with my bills . . . anyway, I’m calling with good news! I have an interview this afternoon for my exact specialty, and it’s not in the city.”

Her mother paused, and Violet could practically hear her mentally warring with the desire to be supportive and her feelings of being slighted. “Oh, well . . . I suppose that is good news, dear. Not in the city? Does that mean you might be moving closer to home?”

Here goes nothing. Deep breath.“No, unfortunately. It’s in a suburb of Bridgeton, it’s the same town I’ve been working in, so I could technically keep my apartment, but I don’t think I’m going to. It’s so nice, I really love it here.” She listened to her mother make a series of small noises as she steeled her nerves. “And it’s where my boyfriend lives, so I’m probably not going to be staying in the city much longer.”

Over the course of her slow courtship, she had joined several online groups for interspecies couples, and the women there waxed poetic about their relationships, with only the occasional complaint about culture clashes or in-law awkwardness. Lurielle had been far more honest, and she’d appreciated the elf’s bluntness more than she’d been able to express.

“It’s mostly good . . . but sometimes it fucking sucks,” she’d said with a shrug, topping off the wine glass before her. Lurielle’s boyfriend was one of the swooniest orcs Violet had ever seen, a towering, sticky-voiced southern gentleman who had an anecdote for every situation, who’d nearly turned yellow when she told the group about her burgeoning student loans, earnestly offering to look over her repayment agreements free of charge to find a hidden loophole that would decrease her amounts owed.

“And if you ever need anything, darlin’, I’m over in the Templeton, right across the river.” The Templeton was one of the poshest high rises in the city, and if her imposter syndrome hadn’t already had her feeling like a pauper at the table full of professionals, between Rourke and the couple next door, the notion of just swinging across the river with her gas station coffee certainly would have.

“Like, super sucks. And it’s always just the little things, you know? Little things, cultural things that come up that you don’t think will be a big deal but then they are, because neither of you wants to compromise, because it doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal.” Violet had nodded, at rapt attention as the elf sipped from her glass before continuing. “People will say things, usually nothing overt, but little comments that are just enough to sting. It’s weird, living here you become so insulated from all that . . . like, there’s a reason the housing market here is so hot, and people don’t ever leave. That’s why I bought this house knowing I’d be stuck living with a stepladder in every room.”

She’d given Violet a tour of her own home that evening, a mirror image of Rourke’s, designed for a much larger species like his, painted a sunny yellow. “It was all that was available in my price range at the time. I was moving here for a job so I needed to live somewhere, and the agent said it’s sometimes months before things hit the market. I had planned on remodeling this year . . . and it worked out that I don’t need to. Now he reaches everything on the shelves and I don’t have to balance on ladders just to put away the dishes.”

“The schools are great, the community is really inclusive and busy . . . you forget what it’s like in other places.”

“I’ve already noticed, “ Violet had blurted, nodding vehemently. “You know I live in the city. Every time he comes to me, whenever we’re out there will always be at least one person who stares. I think it’s the tail. And it’s almost always another human,” she added with a grimace.

“Not always,” Lurielle had grumbled. “Khash lives in the city too. We were at the grocery store near his apartment and this little old bat woman asked if we were planning on adopting because I’d never be able to carry an orc.” She scowled at the memory before tipping back her glass. “Considering I had a pregnancy test on the conveyor belt . . . let’s just say I didn’t take it well.”

Violet had swallowed, desperately wanting to ask how the huge orc didn’t split the petite elf in half every time they had sex. “Are—are you . . .?”

“I’m not, thank the goddess. We’re smart people who are both bad at birth control, so every month is an adventure. Anyway, it’s also hard because he’s very conservative and from such an insular community. I’m not. My parents never took us to the sun temple when I was young, we didn’t really practice Elvish customs at home, but . . . I’m still an elf. There are still things I grew up with that are familiar, food and expectations that don’t always line up with the way he thinks things ought to be, and that’s what I mean about the little things. Just because I didn’t grow up in a conservative household doesn’t mean my being an elf shouldn’t matter less, you know? Plus his family is huge and loud and just . . . it’s a lot. They all talk over each other all the time and there are like thirty people in his immediate family! His mom and sisters are all really nice and he claims they love me, but I know they wish he would have settled down with some nice Cornish girl.”

Violet had swallowed hard, trying to imagine what it would be like, bringing Rourke to Christmas dinner with her family in her all-human neighborhood. She could imagine Mrs. Tinsel pressing her face to the glass to get a glimpse of the minotaur, the hooves dinner guest with a tail!

“So, you know,” Lurielle went on, “it can be a challenge. It’s a constant learning curve, and that’s for us, which makes the shitty, unsolicited comments from other people even more unwelcome. But,” she went on doggedly, “you can’t let it matter. There will always be stuff that happens, different priorities and misunderstandings, there will always be people who will say nasty things . . . but it doesn’t matter if you work through it together. If you love each other and you’re good together, it’s worth it. You figure it out.” Her bright sapphire eyes had been extra glossy as she looked across the yard to where Khash and Rourke stood over the raised hood of Lurielle’s car, a collision of machismo and posturing, threatening to flood the yard with the excess testosterone each man seemed to ooze in the company of the other. “And we’re really, really good together. So there’s lots of stuff that just doesn’t matter.”

“Can I ask a question? How-how does he even fit? I mean, he’s got to be like seven feet tall and his hands are huge, and you’re so petite.”

Lurielle had hunched, nearly choking on her wine as she laughed, eyes streaming. “This is why I like you, Violet. You’re not afraid to ask the important questions. Um, okay actually this is an easy one. Elves are stretchier.”

She’d listened with an open mouth as the elf explained her species’ diminishing population and the evolutionary changes that had happened as they mated more and more with other species. “They definitely don’t teach us that in school though! They want us making Elvish babies with other elves, which is the crux of why most of us are on anxiety medication. Honestly, though, I don’t know how some of these human women do it. Like, we’ll be out and I’ll see a human smaller than you with an orc as big as Khash, and I just want to tell her honey, he’s going to perforate your cervix, there is nothing sexy about that.”

They had both dissolved into laughter as the men made their way back to the table, and she’d gone back to Rourke’s house that night with her heart in her throat, barely waiting for the door to close behind her before she was kissing him. She did love him, she was sure of it, and he was worth it.

“Is-is this someone from the school, dear?”

“It’s not,” she answered, dashing her mother’s hopes that she was involved in a short-lived post-grad school fling. “He’s a bit older than me, very settled, very mature. He’s-he’s a minotaur. Has his own company and a house here. It’s . . . it’s a place I can see myself settling, mom. I really want you and Daddy to come visit once I move. You can help me decorate my new place, and-and you can meet him. It would mean a lot to me.”

It was going to take her mother time, she knew that. Violet reminded herself, as she hung up the phone, that her own reaction to Cambric Creek and all of its residents, Rourke included, would have been very different ten years earlier, before she’d left her insulated human community. One disaster down, now on to the next, she’d thought that morning, readying herself to leave.

Now she shifted, anxiously waiting for destiny to walk through the door. The door jangled open and her head snapped up, but it was only another cluster of university students. She quickly averted her eyes, not needing them to stare her down with the expectation she’d be giving up her small table. She’d already received several hard looks from other patrons: a flinty-eyed goblin toting a laptop and a lovely, haughty woman with light purple skin and long pointed ears, holding the hand of a beautiful little girl, the woman’s miniature in a pinafore dress, clutching a stuffed bear.

Violet did her best to ignore the crowd. This was a nice community, she reminded herself, mentally parroting back the gushing things Rourke’s neighbor had told her: Cambric Creek was welcoming and inclusive, they valued diversity. “And you’re a human!” Lurielle had exclaimed cheerfully. “I hate to admit it, but that’s a leg up. Minority hiring makes the company look good.” The petite elf had shrugged, giving her an encouraging smile, laughing when Violet’s had resembled a grimace.

It’s going to be fine. You’re going to ace this, it’ll be easy, and when it’s done you get to have your latte. When she’d entered the coffee shop earlier, Xenna, the barista, had smiled in recognition. “Just the usual?”

“Not yet,” replied with a shaky laugh. The fact that she was here often enough to be known by the staff never ceased to thrill her. See? You belong here. Things are all going to work out. “I have a job interview . . . um, the ginger tea and a Pep water for now . . . the latte will be my reward when it’s done.” Now she sat, twisting with nerves as she waited for the arrival of the were cat who would decide her fate. It seemed fitting, she thought, that the interview should be here, in the decadent-smelling coffee shop where so much else had happened.

The bell jangled again and she sipped her water, closing her eyes and inhaling slowly. Rourke had called that morning, just before she’d left her apartment, reminding her that she was overqualified for the position, wishing her luck, and telling her not to worry.

“You’re going to be fine,” he’d announced with finality, as if it were a forgone conclusion that she’d get the job. “And if they’re stupid enough to not love you, then it’s their loss. Something else will come up.” She wished she had even an ounce of his confidence, his assertiveness, certain that it would help in situations like this . . . but then again, they’d likely not be a very good match if she were just as bossy. “Just don’t make yourself upset, okay?” His voice had been gentler then, the soft tone he reserved just for her, and she’d almost been able to feel the tender cradle of his palm around her jaw.

He was right, she told herself steadily. If she didn’t get this job, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The knowledge didn’t keep her heart from thumping. When she opened her eyes, the sharp smile of the were cat with whom she’d had a video interview the previous week beamed from across the coffee shop. Violet straightened in her seat, returning his smile. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but she badly wanted this job.

Here goes nothing.